It's pretty easy to follow the road or the path unless it is shrouded in dense fog. Or a swirling snow storm. In that way James finds it difficult to avoid being thankful for that which he does not want to be thankful for.
As he remains here in North Carolina his beloved brother making final improvements to this miraculous Creation of his, and as James helps his brother with some projects, there is so much that our sick culture would tell him to be thankful for. His friendship, The Wonder of watching the Brilliance and goodness of this man pour into the vehicle, a profoundly affordable place to do the work, quiet, safe. Systems and routines that are working out really really well, dual sleeping bags for freezing overnight temperatures, instapot recipes and pasta recipes that are providing an extremely affordable, healthy, food supply with very little effort, and sufficiently tasty and varied. Not yet being in the concentration camps that shortly after 2024 are where James is likely to have his life end torturously, still having Social Security and Medicare that will be Stripped Away by the howling Savage GOP WHITE supremacist male-dominated goons.... this miraculous vehicle that is such a powerful tool for reaching the one in a million Souls that can still be reached in this life on this Earth for their life on this Earth and those that they impact. And I could go on and on.
But being thankful is something that shapes one and if one isn't careful, if James isn't careful, his life becomes what he does not want it to be. The above items are ultimately material wealth of one sort or another even though they're totally devoted to the well-being of others, not that which Jesus understood to be creator, the all almighty power that no one will ever be able to name.
The life of joy is 100% the life of the soul in charge attempting to do good in the world for those in need. And especially and may be entirely, for the profoundly rare soul that can be brought back to the life of joy. 100% of what James wants to be thankful for is in that Realm and nothing outside.
Why does he care about this? Greed. Greed for joy. Greed for Joy for himself, and the extremely unlikely possibility for what Joy he might help lead others to, or back to.
What he is thankful for are those things that have led him to this path, this understanding, strengthen him for it, and for his attempts to live it and thereby share it. Three individuals that were placed in his life path that for decades he could exercise his capacity for unconditional loving especially as it was almost never requited. The root of it all, his father who is the most unconditionally loving individual James has ever encountered. And thereby James understanding of the life of the man Jesus which James thinks is correct and tragically rare. The genuine loving, not to be confused with selfserving convenient affection or kindness, the genuine loving that throughout his life on rare occasions he is received from this individual here, a teacher early on maybe, several teachers early on, and throughout his life the occasional person that was genuinely loving, that is devoting themself in at least some small way to his well-being and Mission, not their own selfish interests. So encouraging and nurturing.
So what James is thankful for to the exclusion of the above, is the path of serving the neediest from the soul in solidarity, for the joy of it, best articulated and exemplified by the man Jesus, by James biological father Edward, the occasional loving Souls mentioned above. Nothing else, though he appreciates things mentioned above that he is not thankful for and is glad of them, but they're transitory, and not important.
