Finding Common Ground
Dear Ones,
We have entered November, our Autumn season, when we harvest our crops from summer plantings and enjoy the bounty. Here in the USA, the harvest has grown into a celebration of gratitude with a feast around the table, often featuring traditional foods like turkey, mashed potatoes, corn, and pumpkin pie, with friends and family.
I remember my first Thanksgiving abroad in 1979 when I was living in a hotel for a few months, in Sokoto, Nigeria, while waiting for university housing. Feeling nostalgic for home and my traditions, I asked the hotel restaurant cook if he could make a pumpkin pie for me. Looking back, that was pretty bold of me, but he agreed.
On Thanksgiving Day, I sat at the dining table, eagerly anticipating my traditional dessert, which I knew would bring me a sense of connectedness and ease my homesickness, even though I was on a different continent, miles away from my family and friends. When he placed the pie in front of me, I noticed it wasn’t really a pie, was much too light in color, and its texture didn’t look right.
I smiled in gratitude, hiding my skepticism, and thanked the cook. As I took my first bite, expecting the sweet flavor of pumpkin, I had to swallow hard because it wasn’t what I expected. There was no sugar in the pie, and it had a completely different taste and texture—not pumpkin, but some kind of squash. I ate it up, relishing every bite for the effort, the tradition, and the gratitude I felt for meeting each other in an exchange cherished to this day.
I was, in a foreign country—an African country—adapting the best I could to my circumstances, working with those around me, and they with me, to find common ground.
As I listen to stories of people coming together to support those in need during these tough times, I feel a deep sense of gratitude and inspiration for how we are uniting when things fall apart, turning them into opportunities to do things differently, to find common ground.
We are lucky to have each other to rely on when things as we know them are changing, crumbling, and breaking down. We are grateful that our love and compassion can create something new.
We are all in this together, one tribe!
Hope to see you soon!
Much Love,
Carley and John