A Spiritual Message on Thanksgiving

Ritual Bathing in Ganges River, India
(Photo: PBS)

During this evening's Thanksgiving dinner, I spoke with a West African woman who has found opportunity in the United States. Our conversation flowed into a consideration of spiritual matters. She said that many of her country's people believed in the existence of spirits. As I understood this perspective, each element in our environment -- trees, sun, moon, plants, rivers, and other things -- has a spirit. Each has something to say, if one is truly psychically open, able to be still, and willing to listen to the world in which we are immersed.

I thought this was a beautiful and an entirely appropriate message for Thanksgiving Day. Later, as my wife and I drove home, I looked at the half moon in the southern sky and wondered what it was communicating. I thought about a river, and how its symbolism has moved philosophers and mystics from India to Egypt to produce profound thoughts. I considered Native Americans and their assertion of the natural world as a collection of living spirits.

I wondered what spirits I could hear, would hear, might hear, if I only tried.