On this “Black Friday” (what a name!) I still am reflecting on the things of life for which I feel thanksgiving. It began anew when yesterday I suggested before dinner, we offer words or short phrases for the things we are thankful for. What might my longer list include?

Certainly I feel thanks for my wonderful family; the wonderful spouse Naomi, the four children with our eight grandchildren. I feel thankful for our dog who is such a loyal, loving companion. She enriches our lives too. I am thankful for our small home in the quiet neighborhood in which we have lived since 1979. I am thankful for the journey with Wayside for the past 33 years before retiring last July. The people and community allowed me to try so many different things, with many failing, but growth always granted.

Most deeply, I am thankful for a sense of deep peace and freedom I feel most of the time…

– For understanding I am not my body but in essence Spirit.

– For the book A Course in Miracles which has brought together so much of my life’s searching.

– That I am totally forgiven for the illusions I have and ever had about offending God in failure.

– For seeing all men and women as my brothers and sisters, united in Spirit.

– For the ability to see I have no enemies, no one I need hate.

– For the ability to not worry about politics and issues, that everything is unfolding perfectly; that it’s more important HOW I see the world    than what I do to try to change the world.

– For the many wonderful experiences I have had thus far in my journey of searching for truth.

– For the many people who came and come into my life giving me ideas and direction.

– For retirement with all its freedom and opportunities to explore anew.

– For enough money to live comfortably with a fairly simple lifestyle, not a lot of stuff, but plenty enough.

– For the joy of exercise and golfing with my son and friends and just being alone with the game.

– For the confidence feel as I enter these “last years” of my life, of being able to face my death with a sense of completion, joy, and release.

– For the ability to laugh and not take life so seriously.

– For the ability not to take politics and political parties so seriously, to accept the coming and going of the tides of life on earth.

– For teachers like Ken Wapnick who over the years helped me gain a deeper understanding of the Course in Miracles.

– For being able to view the world and universe as an illusion, as our attempt to have a world without God, and to feel the deep freedom that comes from this shift in thinking.

– For the forgiveness experienced through realization I am not alone but part of the Eternal Universe of Spirit.

– For being able to let go the sense of victimization, of not being gifted enough, and to accept that I have Everything.

– For songs written and sung by Daniel Nahmod and the ones I have learned and the two I got to sing at Wayside.

– For a deep hope that the best is always yet to come.

– For realizing that Naomi has been one of the most valuable teachers to me in the art of letting go.

– For parents still living, teaching me about aging and dying and medical providers.

– For the sense of deep peace often experienced in the practice of silence and listening, and if I go to sleep, that’s okay too!

– And for all the ideas and things I can’t recall, but know it’s okay, that I am loved and eternally One just as I am on the deeper, everlasting level!

May you all have a blessed weekend and a season of wonderful peace and joy in all things.