Heartfelt Wishes for a Wonderful Thanksgiving

With many challenges and conflicts in the world these days, our Thanksgiving break provides an opportunity to step back and reflect on the blessings in our lives. 

My hope for each member of our SMC community is that this Thanksgiving week will be a time to relax, share meals with friends and family, watch some sports or holiday movies on TV, and enjoy a much-deserved break from classes and other responsibilities.

My own blessings are almost too many to count. I am grateful to live on our beautiful campus and to interact daily with our remarkable students, staff, and faculty, for example, not to mention being greeted daily by the deer, squirrels, and wild turkeys that share our campus with us. 

Many other things fill my life with blessings. Living and praying with the Brothers, meeting students and others at the coffee dispenser in Oliver Hall, and greeting students as they walk to and from the laundry room in Claeys North are daily gifts. Passing faculty and staff in the arcades, cheering student-athletes on in the gym or on the field, waving to students as I pass by the Intercultural Center, watching a student performance in the theater, and attending the student mass on Sundays also inspire me, and bring me joy and gratitude.

Focusing on our blessings this time of the year also gives me a chance to express my gratitude for the contributions each of you makes to building and sustaining our community. 

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Thank you for the many acts of kindness and compassion you display toward one another. I am grateful for the support you provide each other in your classes, clubs, athletic contests, and activities, and during times of crisis or strife in each other’s lives. 

Thanksgiving Day coincides with another significant day in the lives of some of our fellow Americans: the National Day of Mourning for the members of our Native American community. This day of remembrance was instituted in 1970 in recognition of the hardships endured by Native Americans who played an important role in the origin of our celebration of Thanksgiving. 

Once again, my heart is filled with gratitude for each of you and for the blessings we share as the SMC community. For those of you who are so inclined, I invite you to read one of my favorite poems, one that touches on the spirit of the holiday. I've included it below. Happy Thanksgiving!

Warmly,

Brother Thomas Jones, FSC

Interim President

i thank You God for most this amazing

by e.e. cummings

i thank You God for most this amazing

day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees

and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,

and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth

day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay

great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing

breathing any—lifted from the no of

all nothing—human merely being

doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and

now the eyes of my eyes are opened)