THANKSGIVING DAY

Thanksgiving Day, Bush, and I don't know about you, but I have a lot to be grateful for. I'm thankful, above all, simply to be here. In August, I started my sixty-ninth year of this present existence (still hoping for others!) and am grateful for my health, the strength of my body, my breath, for the slowly increasing clarity of my mind--all of which allow me the joy and the privilege of continuing this great adventure.

I'm grateful, too, for the love I am able to share with my wife, Ellie, and with my wonderful family; for the generous love I receive from them, and for the love I am able to give them in return.

I'm grateful for my friends; especially, this year, for my friend Sam, for the example of his courageous and mindful journey toward death; and for my friend Michael, for his example of courage in adversity. They are both inspirations to me.

I'm grateful to you, too, Bush. As I think you know by now, you represent everything I oppose in my life. I sit daily in heavy judgment of who you are and what you do. And yet your re-election has been a great gift to me--the proverbial "gift wrapped in shit." I say this with the understanding that the gift to the rest of the world may be more dubious, and I feel somehow apologetic for that fact. But for me it has opened up a whole new direction and dedication for my writing: for the first time in quite a while, I wake each morning looking forward to the opportunity simply to write down what's on my mind--and in my heart. This blog I have discovered is a joy, entirely unanticipated, and all the more welcome for its surprise. It's an adventure in itself, and I have been looking for adventure…

And there's more. You have become my "great teacher." Your actions, misguided as I believe most of them to be, keep me conscious and alert. I believe and hope that they are making a multitude of minds throughout the world more conscious and alert. My own mind has become sharper, more attentive, more fully responsive to our global predicament. And you offer me a mirror in which my shadows inescapably appear: my fear, my anger… not to mention my greed, my arrogance. (I'm not saying, Bush, that these qualities are yours: only you can judge of that. I'm just saying that you awaken the awareness of them in myself. Otherwise, they remain dangerously hidden.)

So, Bush, there's a great deal to be thankful for on this Thanksgiving Day. I wish you and your family well. And I thank you for being, for me, the great Opponent. I look forward to our continuing to have it out in these pages…