November 26, 2009 -- I planned to take Thanksgiving Day off and skip writing a post this week.  However, as I thought about the holiday, I came to feel that just taking the day off was not enough.  Instead, I want to step out of my IT shoes and talk about what this holiday means to me.

Thanksgiving is a specifically American holiday and I, and most of those reading this post, have a great deal to be thankful about.  Yes, we are going through a hard time right now and for some, it is very hard indeed.  We will come through it. And, in the end, the truth is that most of us in this country live in a time of abundance unparallelled in history.

Moreover, we did nothing to deserve it. It is a gift from those who came before us. We benefit from this gift by the simple luck of having been born here. It is as if we had entered a marathon, full of energy, at mile 25.

I also know that for some, this is a holiday not without issues.  Native Americans can hardly whole-heartedly celebrate the coming of Europeans to this continent. And, I do not know but I imagine, that African Americans, whose forebears were kidnapped from their homes, brought here in shackles, and forced into slavery, would have some mixed feelings about how this holiday is usually portrayed.

Still, those of us who have benefited from life in this country do owe a debt to those who gave it to us that we can never repay.  And, while we cannot repay them, that debt remains an obligation. It is an obligation we can discharge only by helping make things better for those who are not as well off as we, here and in the rest of the world, and for those who follow us.

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