let us love one another

It's not possible to tell you all I am thankful for this year. I'm choked up just thinking about it. It has been an amazing year full of ups... and downs.

Thank goodness for ALL of it. As Uncle Edisto says, "Open your arms to life! Let it strut into your heart in all its messy glory!" Yessir. Wise man.

I have learned so much about the messy glory this year. And so, as I prepare for tomorrow's feast -- I am about to start all the cooking prep -- I want to say thank you. I am grateful to the crazymakers and the peacemakers. Grateful to the hapless, the hopeless, the helpless, and the helpers. Grateful to be alive in this time and place. Grateful to be able to do good work in the world. Grateful to those who labor beside me.

I want to be ready for tomorrow's feast, which I'm dedicating to those who will not have a feast but want one; those who will not be surrounded by family and friends but want to be. Those who are fallible. Those who are human. Those who love even when they are not loved back. I want to be ready to honor them.

So I spent some of yesterday bringing the outside in, which I always do when I know those I love will come celebrate with me.

 Into the yard with my clippers. Into Irene with my bounty.

Then I washed the dishes. Hannah and I found these beautiful old dishes at Kudzu last week. They called to me, whispered, cajoled, fairly begged to be taken home, so I adopted them, brought them to my kitchen, and started their new life by giving them a good bath.

Then I set the table.

And organized what I brought in from outside.

I moved the furniture in my office, and created a dining room.

 And I created a gratitude collage on one wall. I'm almost done adding the photographs of those I am grateful to this year. If you look carefully, you can see the Beatles peeking out from behind a photo of me in that top left corner. You can see my mother-in-law's wedding photo, you can see my children, my family, my heart.

2011 is almost gone. I have dreams for the future, even in these troubled times, these sometimes desperate days, these also-amazing days, and I say:

Let us not worry about who is right. Let us not care about who's ahead. Let us always see the best in one another. Let us feed and care for and nurture one another and see who we really are. Let us tend to one another's wounds and adopt one another and bathe one another in the light of our understanding. Let us understand what brotherhood means. And let us love one another. Always.