Giving Thanks, Giving Aid

Thanksgiving has a different meaning each year, and is always an individual celebration in addition to being a time to gather with others. From births to recoveries, and from personal milestones achieved to positive events on a national or global scale, Thanksgiving is traditionally the time to total up the year’s pros column and ignore the cons as much as possible.

This year’s Thanksgiving will be particularly poignant for Santa Barbara, as residents whose houses and possessions – and lives – escaped the Tea Fire give thanks for good luck, good landscaping, and the heroic efforts of California’s firefighters. But those Santa Barbara and Montecito residents who were less lucky, who lost homes, pets, or treasured heirlooms to the fire, need the community’s help as they enter the holiday season with little to be thankful for besides their lives.

This week’s Your Worship, therefore, is dedicated to all of those Santa Barbarans who are unable to celebrate Thanksgiving at home this year, to those members of our community who were injured in the fire, and to their families. While giving thanks for blessings received throughout the year is important, giving assistance and good wishes to those who need it is an equally valid, and immediately productive, way to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday.