On Thanksgiving Day 2024 our bright tables will be set against a worldwide darkness. As long back as anyone can remember, news from home and from abroad has never been more chilling. Disheartened, I asked a great wise woman whom I love and admire: What message can I possibly share with my friends, in order to give them hope? Her four-word answer came with a radiant smile: “We have one another.”
That’s it! We have one another. We can look in one another’s eyes shining in candle light and know: we belong. Those dear and near us will strengthen us, come what may. Yet, strength against the others is an illusion. There are no others! We are all one.
Well-fed as we are, we need the needy as much as they need us. Only the children rummaging garbage dumps for food can feed our own unacknowledged hunger; only the frightened children under a rain of bombs and, yes, the equally fearful bomber pilots, generals, and weapon merchants can relieve our own deepest fear, if we realize that we are one with them. Only the homeless can heal our most painful homesickness; only the most hopeless can restore our hope, if all of us acknowledge their dignity and work together towards solving the problems we share.
This is the hope I wish you and all of us throughout this season of light and for 2025. Let us make room at our festive table for the whole human family. There’s hope, because “we have one another.”
Your brother David
Br. David Steindl-Rast
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