Thankful for Learning; Thanksgiving 2007

On this Thanksgiving Day, we are thankful we have come together to learn! A Joyful and Jubilant Thanksgiving to all of you, for we so appreciate the aloha you share.

I have learned the joy of making new friends by bravely asking questions -- rather than timidly saying nothing or pompously saying too much. By the way - I have also learned that this is difficult for me, but it gives me an awesome feeling when I get it right.
~ Dwayne Melancon

This year, learning how to practice Yoga has brought me joy, for three reasons: one, for the all around workout it provides me, two, for the greater focus on the inner self it promotes, and three, for the opportunity to practice with my yoga teaching wife (who is so very happy that I'm doing it with her).  Namaste!
All my best to the JJL family,
~ Terry Starbucker

While our American friends are enjoying their Thanksgiving, my family will be celebrating the culmination of a year's planning as our youngest son gets married. We will be outside in a pretty spring garden with rhododendrons and other spring flowers blooming everywhere. We'll watch our son stand on the steps of a gazebo and wait for his bride to walk through the gardens towards him.  We'll watch them exchange vows that are similar to our own of 33 years ago but are very much theirs as they have prepared them to suit the two of them.
We'll share a meal with family and friends and new relatives.
We'll toast them in wonderful Aussie sparkling wines to the backdrop of the fairlylights in the mountain ferns outside the window.
Our world will be different and new and exciting (and no doubt teary for the mother of the groom who always cries at emotional times - I'm already practicing as I type!)
So what am I grateful for in 2007? I'm grateful for: the serendipity that brought a hippy university student into my world in 1973 the ex-hippy now-scientist who discovered his own inner beauty and shared it with me warts and all and somehow got me to believe that I had an inner beauty of my own. The man who has been my rock through 33 years of marriage and 31 of parenting the three amazing men we have nurtured and loved (and cursed and sighed over) and have now shared with a world that will be brighter for their existence and hopefully the little bits of us in them. The women who love these beautiful men and we hope will love them as tenderly and protect them as fiercely as we have the world in which we can look forward to our sons being free to make decisions and mistakes and share their inner beauty because it's safe to do so we'll raise our glass of yummy sparkling to you over in the US as we remember how grateful and lucky we are over here too!
~ Chris Owen

Earn, Learn, and Turkey
I believe Marshall McLuhan in the late 1960’s said in the future we will not earn a living, we will learn a living. That future is certainly upon us. I am thankful to be a learner. What this means is not so much someone who takes courses but someone who takes all experiences and opens to the learning bundled with the experience. Each year I feel less and less threatened by feedback from others and more and more open to learning and growth. I can unbundled learning even from the tough experiences. In essence, to me, learning = living. So on this Thanksgiving I hope we can all gobble up more learning for the remainder of 2007 and learn even more in 2008. The more we learn the less we are likely to be confused with turkeys by other people!
~ David Zinger

I have learned the joy of blogging!  Until last year I was stuck behind a firewall (of the technical sort, but perhaps in other ways too...) Now I am joyfully learning the power of blogging - to write, learn, express, share and most of all to connect.  I have 'met' so many amazing, interesting people over the last 9 months - which in turn has expanded my awareness of just how amazing, interesting and full of possibility the universe is.
~ Joanna Young

I'm most thankful for being able to overcome trials and receiving so many blessings this past year. So much has happened and I didn't really know how to go about things but just the idea moving forward helped me a lot. While I didn't have the time nor the opportunity to reflect on those challenges, I certainly can now.
~ Jen Chan

I have never won as Oscar, but if I did, I would think it would feel a lot like every Thanksgiving when I am asked, "What are you thankful for?"  I am truly blessed.  A fortunate woman indeed.  If I had to list all the things I am thankful for, I would surely forget, omit, overlook, and pass by someone, something, very important.
But, I will do the best I can and hope that those who know me, know.
I am so very thankful for my family.  A husband that supports and children that inspire.  Parents that give strength and sisters that understand. Friends that know they all they lack is DNA...other than that, we are family.
How blessed...how fortunate, Happy Thanksgiving indeed.
~ April Groves

I am thankful for friends that I can learn with, through and from. It makes the learning all the more rich knowing I have a community behind me, helping me get up when I fall down.
Thank you to everyone who's touched my life through JJL. You've made this a year to remember!
~ Phil Gerbyshak

Thank you for this forum. I am indeed thankful for many things this year. I have met many new friends through blogging and through our local Toastmaster clubs. I have to agree with Dwayne that I've learned to bravely go up to strangers and ask questions. This has opened up many new friendships and opportunities. One of the most amazing people that I met this year was Kathy Gaulton. Kathy is the president of Heavenly Treasures, which is a non-profit company that goes throughout the world and starts up micro-enterprises to help impoverished communities.
Her organization came to our church with hand-made treasures from Africa, Asia, and other far off lands. There were hand carved wooden spoons from Kenya, necklaces from Sudan, and hand sewn purses from the Philippines. The neat thing is one hundred percent of the proceeds from the sale of these items goes directly back to the communities where they were made. As cool as the items were, the stories behind them were even greater.
She tells the story of Li, a young girl from a very poor Provence in China. Due to the one child restriction in China at the time she was born, her father tried to kill her in a vat of boiling water so they could have a boy child. She was left for dead outside the city dump. Some good Samaritans came along and found her. They took her to the local mental hospital, where another good Samaritan took her in. She lived there growing up through adolescence, paralyzed from the waist down from the severe burns.
When Kathy found her she was able to get around fine in a wheel chair, but unable to make a living in the local area since she was unable to walk. Through Kathy's organization, Li was able to learn how to sew. She now makes wonderful oven-mits and unique purses from her wheel chair. She is able to support herself and her goal is to be the best seamstress she can be.
I am so thankful for people like Kathy, who find practical solutions to help hurting people. (You can learn more about her organization at www.heavenlytreasures.org)
I am also thankful to be a part of this great learning community.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
~ John Richardson

Sherku: Joyful Jubilant Learning

books, wonders, dialog
so much to be thankful
joyful jubilant learning

I wish you all the best, have a great week!
~ Steve Sherlock

Aloha to all!
What has brought great joy to me this past year is the relationship with you all; from your many posts and insights, I have a renewed desire to write, which went dormant for about fifteen years. So, to all of you, and especially Rosa, thank you so very much!
~ Dean Boyer

I have found that I'm most fully alive when I'm learning and growing and becoming more of the person I was created to be. It is a blessing to be surrounded by others who share this passion and who strive to live each day with this sense of being fully alive. This year I have encountered books I might never have read, lessons I might never have learned, and thoughts/ideas I might never have considered. I'm grateful for the opportunity to partner with my friends and co-sojourners in the Joyful Jubilant Learning community.
~ Tim Milburn

When I sat to reflect on the learning which gave me joy and profound gratitude this past year, two words dominated my thoughts; strength and simplicity. We had embarked on our strengths journey here on JJL this past April, and though familiar to me, it was a re-learning that would bring me the joy of truly feeling strong for me, and being strong for others. Perfect timing, for a year that would test me in a few ways.
We human beings are such a marvel; we come in such a perfect package upon our birth, with so much potential to be groomed and polished as time goes by. We really don’t need that much more than what we start with; it is that simplicity I am so grateful I came to better appreciated this year. My paring down to a few focused essentials has helped me realize how very little I need to live a blessed life. I have my family, I have my friends, I have our community, I have my aloha spirit and my life's work; everything else falls in place.
To everyone who reads these words, thank you for being part of our Joyful jubilant Learning community. On this Thanksgiving Day, I wish you strength. I wish you simplicity. I wish you joy.
~ Rosa Say

Comments

[Joanna Young]

Rosa, thanks for pulling this together, for your most powerful contribution, and for drawing out our thoughts, feelings, words and learning - in your own inimitable way.

I hope you all had a fantastic day

Joanna