With Thanks

[click for course]

I am grateful for life, for beauty, for the chance to see, to hear, to comprehend, to understand.  I am thankful for Durham. For the University, for the academic department, for my advisor, for the opportunity to live here, for the medieval grandeur, for the river, for daily evensong, for colleges, for cobbled streets.  For St Chad's College, for the opportunity to be a member, for the room of the MCR, for the MCR body itself, for formals, for their libraries, for their bar, for their garden, for their croquet set and unlimited amounts of tea, for the people that daily populate the premise and continue to enrich life. For old connections, for old aquaintances, for new faces, for old flatmates, for new ones, for a place that will let me keep bunnies.  For Indy and Felix, (and Annabelle), for animals that broaden life, and force one to live, directly in the moment, for their soft fur, for their habits of not-biting people, for their playful and curious natures, for their independent personalities.

I am thankful for the Church Universal, for the medieval church that set forth so many beautiful buildings and cultural practices, enriching a nation's heritage and one's view of life, for the members, past and present, who make up that body, transformed and transforming into a divine likeness.  For the Church local in Durham present in the community of the Cathedral, and the local bodies that have so warmly invited me in. For the Church in Singapore, ORPC that first showed me beauty of traditional worship and true fellowship.  For the Church in Edinburgh, Holyrood Abbey, whose insistence on practical loving grace changed me forever.  And for the great tradition of Christianity in America that resoultely and defiantly seeks truth.

I am thankful for the great love of people. For the friendships that have built, affirmed, and directed me, for those that have lasted many long years and across many countries. For the loving kindness generously bestowed upon a stranger in a foreign land.  For families that have taken me under their wing and grafted me in, for the many many meals shared under those welcome roofs, for their extravagant kindness that continually humbles me.  For the nearness and immediacy of my own family, though separated by oceans. For the inside jokes we possess, for the ability to easily laugh, and for the great desire we have to continually show love to each other.  For family traditions and for exasperating pets. For fire places and spiced tea and creakily played piano tunes. For their honesty and ability to forgive.  For all the countries we've visited together as a collective whole and for the fact that we are better for each other and better together than we are apart. I am thankful that I will see them in twenty-four days.

And I don't have time to mention all I am thankful for in Edinburgh, in North Carolina, in Georgia, Pennsylvania and beyond, for all the food that daily nourishes, for sports, for great books, for train rides, music and ideas. But. I am most thankful for hope, for in that I live daily, that which keeps all near, even that which is far away and intangible, and makes visible that which is only dimly seen. May you all be possessed by great hope this Thanksgiving day! LOVE xo