Thanksgiving 2008

The Thanksgiving of 2008 does not apparently find us with a great deal to be thankful for. The recession that is upon us is beginning to look very much like a Depression and the world is following us down into the pits. Yet, as long as we have hope, the American dream lives.

If the American dream is material prosperity, homeland security and political power, then we have nothing to be thankful for because that particular American dream is going out with the present administration and its fantasies of cut-rate world domination. .

America bought into the fantasy that soaring markets with get-rich-quick parables and a high-tech, full-spectrum military would allow us to use up the world's energy, its climate and its goods and goodwill without ever paying.

If, on the other hand, the American dream is our hope to share our abundance, to enjoy the security of international respect and to govern ourselves lightly, then we now have the chance to revive that dream and make it greater than ever. And besides we don't have any choice; past bad choices are forcing us to face up to reality.

Let there be no doubt, the economy has tanked and the bottom is nowhere in sight. The U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve are bumbling about with trillions of dollars blowing in the wind to little effect.

The coming destitution and hard times are not something to be thankful for. Rather, they are going to test us - when we did not do too well on the last grading period.

Thanksgiving is the time that we think about abundance, that fruited plain and those amber waves of grain. The material abundance that we have is indeed a blessing. But we should not confuse the abundance that is the fruit of the dream with the dream itself.

The American dream, despite what it looked like until recently, is not the opportunity to upscale your shopping spree from Sears to Saks.

The American dream is not a swat team in every locale, not more TSA agents at the airport nor automated drones blowing up suspected Al Qaeda hideouts in Pakistan.

Nor is the American dream that "limited government" that leaves financial markets unregulated, our very climate in danger of collapse and worker income so starved that it cannot maintain the aggregate demand that sustains our economy.

All the good things that we talk about - abundance, security and hope - are in reality the fruit of the American dream, which is really an ideal, a spirit, the way we act, the choices we make when challenged. We achieve the American dream when we have the opportunity to hope.

The American dream is the opportunity to make those choices without restrictions of class, caste, religion, race, or ethnic origin and now we include gender and sexual orientation. We make those choices in regard to our material abundance, the safety of the community in which we live and the way we govern ourselves, domestically and internationally.

Choices empower our hopes but responsibilities always go with making choices. We are a great nation because we have, more often than not, lived up to those responsibilities. In this past grading period, we have been led to, and eagerly joined in, some really bad choices. But “sin, suffer and repent” is also part of the American dream. The hope for redemption has been preached to us from the time we were toddlers.

We, as a nation, will be judged on how well we use our rich opportunity for choice and how well we extend that hope to those in need.

The American dream is still there; it is our lot to be called to rise to it.

America! America! God mend thine ev'ry flaw;
Confirm thy soul in self control, thy liberty in law!

America! America! God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea!