Thanksgiving and Giving Thanks

Thinking of and thankful for the memories of my family home and Thanksgivings past. It has been seven years since the last Thanksgiving with my father. Tomorrow is my parents' wedding anniversary. It may be a trite saying, but we must always be thankful for all we have because we never know when we will lose it.

It is something to have wept as we have wept, 

It is something to have done as we have done, 

It is something to have watched when all men slept, 

And seen the stars which never see the sun.

It is something to have smelt the mystic rose, 

Although it break and leave the thorny rods, 

It is something to have hungered once as those 

Must hunger who have ate the bread of gods.

To have seen you and your unforgotten face, 

Brave as a blast of trumpets for the fray, 

Pure as white lilies in a watery space, 

It were something, though you went from me today.

To have known the things that from the weak are furled, 

Perilous ancient passions, strange and high; 

It is something to be wiser than the world, 

It is something to be older than the sky.

In a time of sceptic moths and cynic rusts, 

And fattened lives that of their sweetness tire 

In a world of flying loves and fading lusts, 

It is something to be sure of a desire.

Lo, blessed are our ears for they have heard; 

Yea, blessed are our eyes for they have seen: 

Let the thunder break on man and beast and bird 

And the lightning. It is something to have been.

~G.K. Chesterton ("The Great Minimum")