I love Thanksgiving because it is primarily focused on gratitude.  Contrast Thanksgiving with Halloween which is based on "bedrock" social virtues such as hooliganism, narcissism, and excess.

I would like to share a recent insight about gratitude that requires me to provide some historical background on the Mormon pioneers.  What I share is historical, not religious so I hope it does not not offend. I hope you read it and reflect on your own pioneers to whom you should be grateful. 

Part 1
In February 1846, the Mormons living in Nauvoo were expelled under threat of extermination. Their appeals for help were rejected by the government of Illinois, and for the most part, the United States.  In July of 1846, after having slogged across a very wet and muddy Iowa in covered wagons and on foot, the pioneers received a military envoy sent by President James Polk. He requested 500 recruits for the war against Mexico. With the encouragement of their leaders, about 543 Mormon pioneers enlisted and soon departed to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. By willingly answering the call of duty, most left their families alone to face an uncertain winter in Nebraska and 1,100 mile trek the following spring. 

Part 2
The battalion marched from Fort Leavenworth to Sante Fe in about 60 days. Having sent all of their military uniform allowance of $42 back to their families, the battalion members marched in civilian clothes and work boots.  They suffered from excessive heat, improper medical treatment (the sick were administered arsenic), and long forced marches.  About half of the battalion became sick and wintered in Pueblo Colorado.  The rest continued on to California.

Despite their conditions (they marched 18-20 miles per day, some with no shoes and all with insufficient food and water), they gratefully marched and worked building and improving roads (current day Interstate 8 and 10 in Arizona parallel their route and Interstate 15 from Las Vegas to Salt Lake was the road they created). Part of the didrt road system they developed in Arizona is so well defined that you can still see it on satellite maps. 

Upon reaching San Diego after 6 months and about 2,000 miles of marching, their condition was reported to Colonel Cooke. He later stated, "History may be searched in vain for an equal march of infantry. Half of it has been through a wilderness where nothing but savages and wild beasts are found, or deserts where, for lack of water, there is no living creature."  Their march from Council Bluffs to California is perhaps the longest military march in history.

Part 3
Last Friday, my 10 year old son and I, with a bunch of boy scouts, marched about 6 miles on the Mormon trail west and south of the Phoenix valley.  The road, which was later used as a stage coach route from St Louis to San Francisco and as one of the two primary overland routes from east to west, is now mostly powder.  As I "marched" I thought about the legacy of work, service, sacrifice and courage left by those men and I was grateful. I thought about how I can now drive in air-conditioned comfort from my home to San Diego in about a half a day and I was grateful. I thought about the many other conveniences that I enjoy, that these men and others like them could have never imagined, and I was filled with gratitude. 

Even though Thanksgiving is past, let's not allow it to be "over".  It is still very appropriate to be grateful. Now is the perfect time of year to remember and express gratitude to your own pioneers.

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person.
 Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.
~Albert Schweitzer

Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful.
~Buddha

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.
~Cicero

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.
~JFK

I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson