Thanksgiving Day, 2020

 I'm sitting at my computer watching a dense fog roll down the hillside over the snow-covered lawn towards the house. We had a few inches of snow come down yesterday, and now the air temperature is rising and there is fog that hampers visibility. I've been in the woods in weather like this and found myself traveling in circles, even in an area I knew very well. I realized what was happening when I kept coming back to my own tracks. I was finally able to simply keep walking downhill, knowing I would come to the road eventually. It is a scary feeling, and for deer hunters in an unfamiliar area, can be dangerous. It pays to have a compass or GPS and know how to use it.

This is probably the strangest Thanksgiving Day any of us have ever experienced.  I hope most of you still have something you are thankful for, despite all the world problems, national strife and conflict. I believe within weeks there will be reliable, safe vaccines available that will begin to ease the pandemic, and we can all be thankful for that. I am thankful to live in Vermont where the rate of infection is lower than other places - but I am distressed by the number of people fighting the virus infection, hungry for food, and without shelter. These are very difficult times. I am also thankful for my family, and being close to them, even though we will be eating our Thanksgiving meals separately, in our respective homes rather than gathering together.

While this is a sad Thanksgiving for our family - we have had two losses this past year: two of my daughters-in-law, Marie and Theresa, lost their step-father in March, just before the pandemic struck; and last week, we lost Fred, step-father to my three boys. Monika, my third daughter-in-law, worries about her family in Namibia where the virus is flourishing right now and knows she won't be able to travel to see them in the foreseeable future. Jo-Ann, Bill and Monika's eldest daughter, is isolated in Austin, Texas where she attends the University of Texas, and we pray every day that she stays healthy. It's a strange, sad year, but I'm confident 2021 will be better in so many ways, and that's only a few weeks away!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone - here's a smile for you.