In his poem “The World Is Too Much With Us,” William Wordsworth wrote “We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!” Many analyses of the poem have concluded that Wordsworth was raging against the materialism of the First Industrial Revolution (the latter part of the 18th century through the first half of the 19th century) and the trend away from nature. An argument can be made that the world of these United States, circa 2025, has taken giant steps away from the nature that nurtured us when some of our ancestors floundered against the shores of what Christopher Columbus believed was the East Indies. In the autumn of 1621, a gathering was held that became known as “Thanksgiving,” and though the indigenous people of this country were “driven and derided” and ultimately conscripted, we still grace our tables with turkeys. And cornbread, and stuffing and gravy.
My two youngest children were taken by their mother each Thanksgiving day to the Damien Center in Indianapolis Indiana, to serve Thanksgiving dinner to the residents of the center. I did not discuss with my second bride her reasons for taking our children on this Thanksgiving mission — we were divorced, and I was living in St. Louis Missouri — but my daughter remembers it well. Though I had forgotten the name of the organization, Lauren recalled it immediately, when I asked her. I also spent the Thanksgiving of 2012 with her mother and brother, serving dinner at the center.
2025 has brought to many of us in this country, fractures and dislocations; an emotional fissure created by the death of my first bride in July 2024 has widened in 2025; my second bride died in September 2025, and that fissure met the first, and broadened the breaks. Others may have suffered similar fractures, but most certainly there have been other breaks that may make us question why we should be observing a season of thanks.
I woke up this morning, and those who are reading this did so, also. I have a bad cold that will keep me from singing with the Irvington Harmony Collected Community Choir in a concert on Sunday, November 23rd, but not from sitting in the pews and applauding its presentation of “The Resilience Of Hope.” My grandson turned 21 this March and is well on his way toward his career choice in engineering. His sister is a senior in high school and is scheduled to tour Japan in March of 2026. My youngest granddaughter is cheerleading tiny basketball players at the Ransburg YMCA in Irvington, an activity that may be an outgrowth of her dancing and “tumbling” classes.
You are reading the efforts of a woman-owned enterprise — actually, three women — to provide you and your neighbors with a free newspaper, both in hard copy newsprint and online. I am grateful that they have given me a forum for my ruminations and observations and wild dissertations. My youngest granddaughter is 7, and she read the last paragraph of a previous column where I told of her cheerleading activities. She cried out, “You told them my name, and the EXACT PLACE where we cheer!” I am glad that she is appropriately wary yet still, joyfully engaged with the world she inhabits.
As the poet Alan Dugan wrote of his relationship with his love, “Nothing is plumb, level or square” in this world that we inhabit, and the forces of rage and retribution mix with care and concern. But there is always hope, there are always people who will care, and for that, at least, we should give thanks.
cjon3acd@att.net