Brain Vomit.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today was quite the day for me, lots of house work done.  I (almost) finished painting the guest room (just one more coat of the darker color), moved junk out and ripped the carpet out of the same room, and tilled half the garden with a shovel.  I'm seriously considering buying rototiller, my garden is too large to till manually [read I'm lazy].  This was all I did really, I was going to plant some bulbs as well but decided against it in favor of tilling the garden with a shovel.  Right hard work that is, so I just went back inside and showered rather than continue yard work.

To the point:
I think Thanksgiving should be a weekly occurrence.  Not the overeating part, the thanks giving part - and maybe the family part as well.  As a culture we seem to have become rather...entitled.  We tend to lean toward ungratefulness in this attitude of 'I deserve'.  Truth is what you do and don't deserve is really very simple, you can work it out by separating the need from the want.  Wanting something is not congruent with deserving it.  For example; saying 'I deserve a new car because I worked so hard' is a bit silly.  You don't deserve that car, it is not your right to own that car, the car itself may be a frivolous purchase, but it is nice to treat yourself nonetheless.  On the same token, needing something isn't always the same as deserving it, but needing and deserving often go hand in hand.  I feel people deserve a roof over their heads, or a decent meal, someone to care about them.
The point here is that what is deserved and what is not is generally relative to the person.  However, in my opinion American society is too entitled for its own good.  In the very end, it is God who decides what we deserve and what we do not.


That being said, Thanksgiving is really an underrated holiday.  One should always be grateful for the things one has, or doesn't have (such as Cancer, that is something to be grateful not to have).  If you don't get along with your family, that's OK but it is not an excuse to forgo Thanksgiving altogether.  If you're impoverished, that's OK too, no one said that it was mandatory to feast on Thanksgiving.  Feasting is only a tradition.  Besides, anything can be made special with the right mindset.
If you find that you have trouble thinking of things to be thankful for this holiday, here is a potential list of all those things we take for granted on a daily basis:
a home, food, the ability to see color, working legs/feet/arms/hands, health in general, life, the ability to see anything, your car if you have one, your family (even if you hate your parents, they did give you life), friends, sense of taste, the ability to hear.
These are things that a lot of people just never think about.  I think it's good to be thankful for the life you have, even if it's hard sometimes...or most of the time.

This is why I think Thanksgiving should happen more often than once a year.  It's important to be aware of the blessings you have.
Instead of thinking about what you deserve, think about the good things you already have.  Take it from me, life gets better once you switch mindsets.


Things I am thankful for this year:
My fiance, parents, friends, house, my two cats, my sight, smell, hearing, voice, health in general, my car, that I found God, my job, food.

~~~

This is how I'm going to conduct the posts of Not Less Than Everything:  Regular posts will be on Friday unless I'm going to be busy, then Thursday.  Smaller posts will be made on other days of the week,

Regular posts are going to contain the lessons from the Catechism - three at a time - and my reactions to them; the difficulties I had understanding or accepting them or just my general comments.  The idea of this blog is for you to follow my journey through this dramatic change.  Once the journey is 'complete' I will most likely share with you the challenges of Christian life (because being a true Christian is truly challenging it turns out) and maybe some homey things like recipes an whatnot.

The title of this blog has double meaning.  Not only is it a reference to the 'price' of Catholicism but it is exactly what you'll get from me in my posts.  Here [this blog] is where I will strive to be most genuine, giving you nothing but exactly what is going through my mind.

I leave you tonight with the poem that inspired the title of my blog (and so many others it seems)

Little Gidding
(No. 4 of 'Four Quartets')

T.S. Eliot

V

What we call the beginning is often the end

And to make and end is to make a beginning.

The end is where we start from. And every phrase

And sentence that is right (where every word is at home,

Taking its place to support the others,

The word neither diffident nor ostentatious,

An easy commerce of the old and the new,

The common word exact without vulgarity,

The formal word precise but not pedantic,

The complete consort dancing together)

Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,

Every poem an epitaph. And any action

Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea's throat

Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.

We die with the dying:

See, they depart, and we go with them.

We are born with the dead:

See, they return, and bring us with them.

The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree

Are of equal duration. A people without history

Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern

Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails

On a winter's afternoon, in a secluded chapel

History is now and England. 

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this

Calling

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

Through the unknown, unremembered gate

When the last of earth left to discover

Is that which was the beginning;

At the source of the longest river

The voice of the hidden waterfall

And the children in the apple-tree

Not known, because not looked for

But heard, half-heard, in the stillness

Between two waves of the sea.

Quick now, here, now, always—

A condition of complete simplicity

(Costing not less than everything)

And all shall be well and

All manner of thing shall be well

When the tongues of flame are in-folded

Into the crowned knot of fire

And the fire and the rose are one.