This afternoon we will sit down to dinner with family or friends. Gratitude will be a theme as we offer a blessing on the meal. It's appropriate to Thanksgiving, of course. We may even recall the story of the Pilgrims' thankfulness for surviving their first difficult year in the New World.
At many of our tables, there will be a nod to the formerly religious aspect of the day as someone suggests "Let's go around the table and everyone say what they are grateful for."
At times like this, it's easy to name good health, career success and our kids' accomplishments. This year, many of us will be grateful that we still have jobs or homes or family living out of harm's way.
But we often forget that our lives are rarely black-and-white and that some of our best gifts don't come in pretty wrapping. So here is a suggestion to put a new spin on the tradition. Today, ask your guests: What are the mixed blessings in your life this year?
Here are some examples: There was the day you were late and therefore missed the big accident; or the day you skipped church but when channel-surfing heard a speaker that gave you a new outlook on life.
Maybe the day you got lost in a new part of town but in your wandering found a store that sold exactly what you had been hunting for months. Get the idea?
Then up the ante a little: How about when you got fired but at outplacement you found the work you really want to do?
Or maybe the person you wanted to marry said no and broke your heart, but months later you met "The One."
Push it further. How about the serious illness that knocked you off your feet, but staying in bed gave you time to recast your life? Or maybe the struggle to accept a more permanent disability made it plain who your friends really were or revealed a talent you didn't know you had?
OK, even harder: What about the death of a loved one that devastated you, but one day in the midst of grief you realized you that could feel joy as you never had before, and you knew that you could feel it because the grief had cracked you open.
Similarly, you may have received a gift from someone else's death because it made you see just how short life is and you decided to quit with the worry/status/fear and get on with your life.
These mixed blessings are not easy to accept or admit, and sometimes it is just faith that is the gift. It can be in the midst of terrible things that we're forced to develop trust, and then we find, when the crisis is over, that our new beliefs are ours to keep.
Of course, the highest level of such gratitude is saying "Thank you" even before the good part comes. If you've had some experience with mixed blessings, you begin to know — even while life is unpleasant — that there will be meaning in it. And so we express thanks, purely on faith, even when we're getting hit hard.
Yes, most of these blessings come in less than Hallmark moments. Maybe it was the painful feedback from a friend that clued you in on a truth about your personality, or the DWI that was humiliating and expensive but made you face a problem and change your life.
Maybe it was an emotional breakdown that allowed you to put yourself back together in a new and stronger way.
As parents, we coach our kids with, "What do you say?" when a gift is given. Could we learn to say that to ourselves when life hands us a package that isn't very pretty?
So today when, "What are you grateful for?" comes around to you, dig deep. Name the blessings that came from pain and grief or loss and trouble.
When we can say "thanks" for both the good and the bad, for both easy and hard times, then, just like the Pilgrims, we'll have a real Thanksgiving.
Diane Cameron is a Capital Region writer. Her email address is dianeocameron@gmail.com.