EudoraNews.com

Except for those among use who experienced the bleak days of the Great Depression and World War II, this will be the most dismal Thanksgiving in memory.

While the economy remains in precarious shape with unemployment spiking at more than 10 percent — its highest level in nearly three decades. Few of us don’t know someone touched by the recession if, indeed, we have managed to avoid its direct consequences At the same time, the country remains involved in two wars, which continue to claim the lives of young men and women.

Yet, we will pause this week to give thanks and in that we will connect to a tradition that traces to our earliest roots. Those settlers of a new land had little reason to be confident of their future as another harsh New England winter loomed. Yet they had faith and confidence in their own abilities.

In giving thanks, we are forced to consider our strengths. It is easy to be thankful when all is well, but it is the accounting and appreciation of assets that makes Thanksgiving a very meaningful holiday in these lean and dangerous times.

We have many more resources than those early Americans and far more than larders filled with summer harvest to rely on or for which to be thankful.

Among us everywhere are those whose drive, well meaning and persistence are laying the groundwork for better days.

It’s not to dismiss the current problems and the real hardships they cause, to recognize we are blessed with an abundance of talent and ingenuity and a bounty of natural resources.