To the editor:
As we approach Thanksgiving, we write as a group of connected local clergy in the spirit of sharing a message of gratitude and community. Each of us, on behalf of the communities we serve, offer blessings to all of our neighbors in southern Berkshire County.
In 1789, President George Washington declared our first national day of Thanksgiving. Later, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday in November as a National Holiday for Thanksgiving, and since 1941 it has been an official public holiday in the United States. Truly, Thanksgiving is a holiday that transcends religious and cultural divides to unite us in a shared spirit of gratitude, community, and hope. This year, Thanksgiving takes on a deepened significance, as we prepare to gather during a tender time in our nation, and in the world.
This year, we join together in the spirit of community in sharing a message of hope and gratitude. In this time, when division often dominates the headlines, Thanksgiving can remind us of the strength that lies in coming together. It encourages us to extend a hand to our neighbors, to offer help to those in need, and to remember that the well-being of each individual is tied to the well-being of all.
Our Berkshire community is strengthened by communal care and solidarity, and in that spirit we want to lift up the crucial work that many in our community do to ensure that all who are hungry and in need can enjoy the blessing of a full table. For many in our community, the blessing of a crowded table laden with food is a significant financial challenge. We want to invite all who are able to consider lightening that burden for those in need by making a contribution of either donated food or money to organizations in our community that provide food support to those in need:
- People’s Pantry or Berkshire Bounty in Great Barrington.
- Lee Food Pantry with drop-off site at the First Congregational Church in Lee.
- Sheffield Food Assistance Program and Village Family Food Box both located at First Congregational Church in Sheffield.
- The Sheffield Police Department is sponsoring a turkey drive for Village Food Box that will serve families in the Southern Berkshire Regional School District. Turkeys can be dropped off at the Sheffield Police Department freezer.
- The Pick-Up Pantry in Monterey at the Monterey Church, 449 Main Road.
- 24/7 Pop-Up Essentials Pantry at the First Congregational Church, UCC, Stockbridge (4 Main Street, behind church building).
- BRIDGE is seeking volunteer drivers and food packers to help with their mutual aid food-distribution program
With deep appreciation for the blessings of community, we offer these prayerful words of gratitude:
For the expanding grandeur of creation, world’s known and unknown, galaxies beyond galaxies, filling us with awe and challenging our imaginations:
We give thanks this day.
For this fragile planet earth, its times and tides, its sunsets and seasons:
We give thanks this day.
For the joy of human life, its wonders and surprises, its hopes and achievements:
We give thanks this day.
For our human community, our common past and future hope, our oneness transcending all separation, our capacity to work for peace and justice in the midst of hostility and oppression:
We give thanks this day.
For high hopes and noble causes, for faith without fanaticism, for understanding of views not shared:
We give thanks this day.
For all who have labored and suffered for a fairer world, who have lived so that others might live in dignity and freedom:
We give thanks this day.
For human liberty and sacred rites; for opportunities to change and grow, to affirm and choose:
We give thanks this day.
We pray that we may live not by our fears but by our hopes, not by our words but by our deeds.
We give thanks this day.
— O. Eugene Pickett
With blessings,
The Southern Berkshire Interfaith Clergy Council
Rabbi Jodie Gordon, Hevreh of Southern Berkshire
Rev. Marisa Brown Ludwig, First Congregational Church of Lee, UCC
Rev. Liz Goodman, Monterey Church, UCC
Rev. Tadd Allman-Morton, First Congregational Church of Great Barrington, UCC
Rev Jill Graham, First Congregational Church of Sheffield, UCC
Rev. Carol Allman-Morton, Unitarian Universalist Meeting of South Berkshire
Rev. Erik Karas, Christ Trinity Church, Sheffield, Episcopal and Lutheran
The Rev. Samuel T. Vaught, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Stockbridge
Rev Brent Damrow, The First Congregational Church , UCC, Stockbridge
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