NOT MUCH TO BE THANKFUL ABOUT(?): These last 5 weeks have been, if not the most challenging period of all my circuits around the sun, they’re certainly in the team picture & according to one that crossed my path this week, one of those that never saw a silver lining that didn’t contain a dark cloud, should make me less thankful for 2024. He may be on to something, other than family, a tribe that grew to 9 this year, a tribe that showed up at a hospital, without request, to visit the matriarch in the middle of raising families & starting careers, family that showed up from out of town because it was all hands on deck, family that offer every Sunday the opportunity to take a 4 generation picture at church, two little ones that call me Papa & a lifeguard/swim coach that pledged for better or worse & meant it & friends, churched & unchurched, some voted red & some blue, but they always seem to show up or pray up or text at the right time with the right words & then a small gymnasium & its inhabitants & their kindness in words & hugs like I got yesterday from a 3rd grader because I interrupted their class with a Happy Thanksgiving wish & students parents checking in on my mom & co-workers that have helped me navigate difficult days with encouraging notes scribbled on napkins & sarcasm & doing my job & aiding my rediscovery of my humanity, my decentness, my courage, & my grit to wake up every day & make the devil scan Hell & say, “…well dang it boys, he’s up, we’re in for a scrap”, people that have given a self inflicted refugee from the human arms race a home, a purpose on this womb to tomb trip, an ability to handle the seasons, all of ‘em, of his life, a reason to show up for each day’s dirty little skirmish in this life’s dirty little war & risk being scarred for showing up & being willing to get up again tomorrow to wash, rinse, repeat & then the next day & the next & then there’s God, whom I petition far more than I thank, whom I pester in the void & don’t seek in the full, whom when I question where He is, He delivers from His Crayola box to my porch a sunset that says, “I’m right here”. Yep, not much to be thankful for…