Deep (fryer) thoughts on Turkey Day

A few things I’ve read recently have really rung true, and I think they’re worth pondering before we share food and fellowship with family and friends today.

There’s a nice long article about President Obama in the New Yorker, and here’s a quote from it on what he’ll say to his daughters about the post-election spate of bigotry-driven incidents:

“What I say to them is that people are complicated,” Obama told me. “Societies and cultures are really complicated. . . . This is not mathematics; this is biology and chemistry. These are living organisms, and it’s messy. And your job as a citizen and as a decent human being is to constantly affirm and lift up and fight for treating people with kindness and respect and understanding. And you should anticipate that at any given moment there’s going to be flare-ups of bigotry that you may have to confront, or may be inside you and you have to vanquish. And it doesn’t stop. . . . You don’t get into a fetal position about it. You don’t start worrying about apocalypse. You say, O.K., where are the places where I can push to keep it moving forward.”

Here’s Pope Francis addressing the newly installed cardinals this past Sunday:

Ours is an age of grave global problems and issues. We live at a time in which polarization and exclusion are burgeoning and considered the only way to resolve conflicts.  We see, for example, how quickly those among us with the status of a stranger, an immigrant, or a refugee, become a threat, take on the status of an enemy.  An enemy because they come from a distant country or have different customs.  An enemy because of the color of their skin, their language or their social class.  An enemy because they think differently or even have a different faith.  An enemy because…  And, without our realizing it, this way of thinking becomes part of the way we live and act.  Everything and everyone then begins to savor of animosity.  Little by little, our differences turn into symptoms of hostility, threats and violence.  How many wounds grow deeper due to this epidemic of animosity and violence, which leaves its mark on the flesh of many of the defenseless, because their voice is weak and silenced by this pathology of indifference!  How many situations of uncertainty and suffering are sown by this growing animosity between peoples, between us!  Yes, between us, within our communities, our priests, our meetings.  The virus of polarization and animosity permeates our way of thinking, feeling and acting.  We are not immune from this and we need to take care lest such attitudes find a place in our hearts, because this would be contrary to the richness and universality of the Church, which is tangibly evident in the College of Cardinals.  We come from distant lands; we have different traditions, skin color, languages and social backgrounds; we think differently and we celebrate our faith in a variety of rites.  None of this makes us enemies; instead, it is one of our greatest riches.” 

And now for something completely different (but not really), here’s a quote from writer/director/actor Harold Ramis in a Judd Apatow book called Sick in the Head that features interviews with famous comedy folks:

And for dessert, there’s this classic from the Dalai Lama:

So yes, today is a day to be thankful. But every day is a day to be kind. Happy Thanksgiving!