My home, sweet home

TODAY we go to “war”.

Not the actual kind of war that we Americans have become sadly used to. Just football. Just EAGLES vs Cowboys on Thanksgiving Day.

I’m probably the only fan you’ll hear referring to that game as “just”. The truth is, if it were last week or next week I’d using all the regular incendiary language. Instead it falls on Thanksgiving, our native holiday. Our own Holy day, celebrated nowhere else on this planet.

The purpose of the day is to give thanks. Thanks for our families, our friends, homes, freedoms, way of life… Just anything we have that we weren’t already clutching in our fists when we came to this world.  Meaning everything.

Before the game, when I’m too invested in “hating” Americans in different color shirts, I want to give thanks for those differences which have made us as strong as we are today; in spite of the million ways they can be used, and have been used, to divide us.

I want to give thanks to the many things we share of ourselves with each other, despite being so different from each other. That in itself is a marvel. Let me give you an example.

Today, almost 800 miles away, a friend of mine with Cowboys silver and blue in her veins, will wish nothing short of clinical depression for me and everyone else who claims even mild interest in the EAGLES.

The same things will make us happy. First downs and touchdowns. Big gains, and big hits. The same things will make us sad. First downs and touchdowns. Big gains and big hits. We’ll want the same thing for two different teams playing the same game. One of us will be elated after the win. The other will be avoiding my phone calls. (Had to get that in.)

Though we could let something we are passionate about divide us, we both rise above that and focus on the human being and not a sports rivalry. There is strength in that, and it is a strength possessed by many of us. 

So knowing that not just EAGLES fans come to this site, before I get carried away with the game, and caught up in the moment, before we go to “war”, I want to take a moment and give thanks for you.

My reader.

My fellow fan.

My fellow American.