Thanks.

Thanksgiving. I have been thinking about thanksgiving and all the church signs I see around with some variant of "Thank God" for something. That got me in a really negative mode because there is no doubt that if you thank some being for the good things then you must hold that same being responsible for the bad things. At least as I see it. Then I read a blog (1) posted by one of my favorite authors, a woman suffering and possibly dying from MS. She shamed me with her long list of “thanks” without once thanking any kind of god. I went back over my own thoughts and did after all find lots of things to be thankful for. Thank you to Sally for all the years you have put up with and loved me. Grateful for being alive and relative healthy, not rich, but not poor either, good friends, and the list got longer and longer.
With deities off the table, anyone can be grateful for anything. Or appreciative even. Like a beautiful sunrise or powerful storm. A poem or novel or play or symphony. Anything. Negative just slips away.
So I think my point is this: If you feel the need to thank some god for everything good that ever happens, then you should hold some god responsible for the times when things go wrong. “Thank you God for the food on our table, but where are you when people are starving in the Sudan?” And “Thank you God for protecting my child while she was deployed in Afghanistan, but where were you when other children were shredded by IEDs? And by the way, why are we at war anyway? If you are so powerful and loving, surely you could solve that little problem without butchering thousands of innocent people?”
Get the point? No praise without responsibility.

1. “A Writers Thanksgiving” : http://asknicola.blogspot.com/2010/11/writers-thanksgiving.html
Image: iskcon.net.au