As 2020 careens to a close, few will be sorry to bid it farewell. Devastating wildfires, hurricanes, floods and a global pandemic, not to mention America’s divisive presidential election, have been just the highlights of a tumultuous, heart-piercing year. And as we approach the Thanksgiving holiday, we know that we face one unlike any other, with travel plans abandoned, communal meals canceled, families dispersed and in too many cases members mourned.
Perhaps, then, it’s necessary more than ever to be grateful for what we have, or so the bestselling author Denise Kiernan reminds us in her brisk book “We Gather Together.” Suggesting that thankfulness is a state of mind as nourishing as any feast, she declares grace isn’t something we say but bestow: it’s an “active choice.” In fact, many psychiatrists and neuroscientists, she asserts, believe “gratitude practice” good for body and soul. Yet though she summarizes some of the ancient religious and secular customs associated with various thanksgiving observations, she’s writing mostly of the peculiarly American feast, established nationally during the upheaval of the Civil War and proclaimed only weeks before Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg.
