American Thanksgiving Day is fast upon us. Canadian Thanksgiving Day has passed.  To give thanks on one day a year isn’t enough. We, who are blessed to live in Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, Brazil or the United States, have countless reasons to give thanks every day. Here are a few:
If you are in good health, be thankful for that. Health is the first wealth. If you are ill, be thankful that the health service available to you is among the world’s best. Be thankful you don’t live in sub-Sahara Africa where the AIDS pandemic has so crowded all hospitals that patients are stacked three in a bed with more lying on concrete floors, reports Stephen Lewis, the former UN’s special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa.
Be thankful for the fabulous foods of our farms. There is nothing that the greatest chef could do, other than a pinch of salt, to improve the taste of a deep-red, field-ripe tomato, nor the taste of simply-cooked corn fresh from the field.  Haute cuisine never tasted so good. We do have a malnutrition problem in our nations, but it’s not the problem faced by more than a billion people who go to bed hungry every night. Our most serious malnutrition problem is eating too much!!
When you are bereaved – and sooner or later we nearly all are – be thankful for memories. As the piercing pain recedes, treasured memories grow in the mind and heart.
Be thankful you weren’t born in the Congo, where disease, starvation and violence means that only three of every four children will live to age five.
Be thankful your grand children don’t have to go to school in Afghanistan where the Taliban is burning down schools almost as fast as Canada, the United States and other nations can build new ones. In the 12-month period to mid-August, Taliban attacks closed 208 schools (144 burned down), killed at least 41 teachers and students, and kept more than 100,000 kids shut out of school. Stopping the Taliban is one of the reasons that our nations are in this country.
Be thankful for every smile you receive, from family, loved ones, friends, and strangers alike, from the bus driver, the store clerk, the waitress, and yes your opponent on the Courts.  Smiles make the sun shine. The more you give the more you get.
Be thankful that at your disposal are millions of books. Through inter-library loans, you can borrow almost any book you can conceive of. Fabulous!!
Be thankful for the Internet which puts instantly at your fingertips a store of recorded knowledge and information that is greater than was known to all mankind the year you were born. There are at least a couple of billion people in this world who, let alone the Internet do not have even telephone service – nor electricity nor clean and safe drinking water.

Be thankful for the four seasons – the glorious colours of fall, the dazzling snow and purifying cold of winter, the burst of birth in spring, the indolent days of summer.

But most of all be thankful for the great love of family and loved ones, and the warmth of good friendships.

And every day that WE remember to be thankful, is a happier day for us all.

Author unknown.  Posted by Stan McCormack.  2015 11 25