The good exercise of being thankful comes through our minds just as surely as turkeys or hams are pulled off the grocery shelves and prepared for Thanksgiving.

It’s surely good for our souls, we think, and we like this.

We like to think sometimes, that if we practice being thankful more often we will do better, or at least feel better.

It’s like trying to keep the spirit of Christmas giving going throughout the year or remembering New Year’s resolutions later in March.

In the Christian world, the good exercise of being thankful is cultivated as a regular habit.

From my experience, it is the best antidote to the wave of fear that regularly rolls over us in the form of regular news on the declining financial markets south of the border and our political response in the form another election.

To be thankful, in Christian practice, is something to be taken very personally.

The Jewish theologian Martin Buber continues to inspire my thinking as he spoke to tell the world that God is not an “it” but a “Thou.”

I practice being thankful, not to a “to whom it may concern” but to “Thou,” the One Creator of the Universe of whom I am intrinsically a part.

This Thanksgiving I am particularly thankful to be able to produce some of the food that is eaten by my family, friends and neighbours.

I am thankful that in this part of the world, and in this age, we do have enough food to share with others.

But the fear of starvation is a real spectre in many places in the world. The fear of not having sufficient food is present on our streets.

So I am thankful for the Creator and the Creation; (the only place in the universe that produces chocolate – by the way).

I’m also thankful for creative minds who are working on the millenium goals; one being to “End poverty and hunger by 2015.”

So this Thanksgiving I’m thankful for all the creative minds in the world of science, economics, agriculture and politics (to name a few areas) who are working on this goal.

And I’m thankful, as a small producer of farm fresh eggs, to be a small part of this.

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The Rev. Deborah van der Goes is priest among the people of St. James Anglican Church, Departure Bay Road, Nanaimo.