happy thanksgiving

I am grateful for our home and food to feed our family.
I am grateful for the opportunity to come together with friends and feed the homeless in our community.
I am grateful to the people who started this seva opportunity.
I am grateful for the blessings that this experience is giving to all of us.
We are now doing this once a month, as a family.  Friends with kids are joining.  More and more people want to participate.

A week after the first time we worked to feed the homeless in our community, which always includes many children, I asked my son a question.

"Shawn what do you feel best about in your life?"

I expected him to say his school grades, sports accomplishments, learning drums...

But without hesitation he answered, "Feeding the homeless."  I remembered a week prior, as Shawn stood in line offering scoops of rice to all of the people who came through the line, with more politeness than we usually see at home.  (He called the women ma'am!)  I remembered all the children who came through the line with their parents, I think we fed 72 people that night.  I remembered two boys, probably brothers, who looked about Shawn's age, all of them the same height, and how they all met eyes.  And I realized, never underestimate the power of these types of experiences for our children, all of them -- those with homes and those without.

So yes, happy Thanksgiving.