THANKSGIVING SEASON

Deep into another bruising NFL season, fans may believe football is goalpost-to-goalpost action. Not true. Actually there's only about 17 minutes of contact in between downs. If we really want to study non-stop action, the better venues would be our Thanksgiving Season airports, train stations and highways. No other time of year when Americans are in more motion in more different directions for more different reasons.

This annual collision of human energy has a tale to tell. Tens of millions of us moving from and to. Most likely to. To important places, important people, and important purposes in our lives.

We've always been an in-motion people. By nature and history. (We even helped invent the rocking chair just so we could be in motion while sitting still!). But Thanksgiving days have become the designated days for this frenzy of motion. With places central to the frenzy. Usually the places we call "home." In far-off states or maybe just across town; but there's something about these places that holds powerful meaning for us. So powerful, it's like Delphi to the ancient Greeks or the Holy Land to three world religions.

And yet, lets be clear. Places are just spaces. It's the people in those spaces that are the irresistible magnet pulling us there. Parents, grand-parents, relatives, adult children. Blood is not only thicker than water; blood is the silent, secret that forever bonds and binds all those who share it.

Finally, the purposes. Virtually everyone in the skies and on the roads bears an agenda. Oh, not always expressed. Maybe not even known to themselves. But each year we understand there is some emotional bridge involved. One we understand, consciously or sub-consciously, must be crossed. A memory being re-visited? A mistake being corrected? A dream being fulfilled? An epiphany being greeted?

The places are easy to get to. The people, maybe less so. But as for the purposes -- well, that's where every Thanksgiving season can get a little complicated. If elections and wars are hard, if being president or pope can be difficult, satisfying your personal agenda this season can sometime break your heart.

And yet, each year we make the trip. We take the chance. And over table, we often succeed more than we dared dream. So -- whether on your way there or on your way back -- here's to the Thanksgiving season. With an encore of sorts coming in just a few more weeks....