Thoughts on a Sunday

Today is Sunday, a day of kicking the weekend in the butt and getting things accomplished that you were too lazy to do Saturday.  In Casa Swan those things would include: laundry, picking up thirty pounds of toys from the floor and vacuuming, and mentally psyching up to wake up and leave the house for the following 5 days in a row.  Today will also include some yummy extras, including a pot roast for dinner, and some baking action.

Today I'm proud because I have enough money to buy food for my family.  I work for a living, make a fair wage, and am able to plan meals for my family, whether they are homemade or not, so we can eat each night of  the week.  I'm lucky and blessed because Thad and I don't have to figure out which one of us goes without because we can afford to feed ourselves and our family.  Not every family in the world knows such blessings.

Angie posted about the hunger she has seen in Africa as part of Blog Action Day, and the topic of this global blog community's focus this year is food, and it's absence in the lives of our neighbors, on this continent and all over the globe.  

I've never known real hunger.  My parents, even when they struggled to pay their bills and keep food on the table, did not ever have to put their kids to bed hungry because they couldn't feed them.   My kids don't know hunger more severe than when dinner is later after on a night after mommy and daddy both worked all day.  This seems normal, but it's actually pretty luxurious compared to working parents all over the world.

As Americans we've become jaded to what happens in other parts of the world, because in our communities and our lives hunger isn't as prevalent and visible.  It's not that it isn't there, but you sometimes have to squint to see it because we've lost our ability to recognize need, and in some ways we've become more selfish as a society with what we feel we owe those less fortunate.  The homeless must have "done" something to be that way, is what I think a lot of people think when they see folks at red lights and interstate exits with signs asking for help.  But you don't have to be homeless to be hungry.  There are plenty of folks that live in homes that still have difficulty affording nutritious food to feed their family.

Today, as I'm cooking and cleaning and folding and, finally, eating, I will be giving thanks that I live a life that allows me little luxuries like McDonald's french fries and cheap red wine.  I am thankful that the hunger I feel is easily remedied, and thankful that my kids can feel secure in where there next meal is coming from.  I will be thankful that the greatest hardship I face regarding food is getting my husband to just pick something out of the dinner options we normally have available, instead of making me pick something every night.

When you can, donate to your local food bank.  Find out if there is a program in your area for assisting local seniors with meals.  Or don't do anything at all, but at the very least, BE THANKFUL.

A few excellent quotes on the subject of gratitude:

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.  ~G.K. Chesterton

There is not a more pleasing exercise of the mind than gratitude.  It is accompanied with such an inward satisfaction that the duty is sufficiently rewarded by the performance.  ~Joseph Addison 

Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.  ~Aldous Huxley

Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.  ~William Arthur Ward
  

And in the spirit of gratitude, thank you to Angie for taking part in Blog Action Day, and if any of you readers have a gratitude to share, do it in the comments!