As you approach the tension of the table. A thanksgiving thread.

Gentle reminder that you are part of a massive process the earth has been doing. A 4.5 billion year experiment in eternal life through an intelligent vehicle called evolution.

This process unfolds by trial and error, through crisis and innovation, by transcending and including prior forms with increasing complexity and differentiation.

Your family is no exception. Whether we are talking cultural or biological evolution, the long arc of evolution necessarily advances by the older generation conserving what came before while the next generation births the new “software” for what is yet to come.

Sometimes it helps to see that this is an unavoidable process of “roles” we play in this great universal drama. I know it can sometimes feel like an exhausting spectacle around the thanksgiving table but maybe it helps to be reminded that this is the eternal process we have been recruited into.

We all play our parts between the tension of these extremes. Developing the discernment to preserve what is beneficial; the gifts and wisdom of the ancestors, while simultaneously bringing forward the necessary new as we listen to the voices of the young. This tug-of-war is the engine of reality often moving back and forth yet forward over time.

None of us do this alone. We are all in concert as one, harmonizing as best we can. Not just around the table but around the world and throughout time. Nobody has the clear view in total and everybody matters.

Just wanted to remind us that when we expect it to be different than that, we make enemies of one another and double the suffering of what is already an essential evolutionary friction.

Deep respect to the ways you all walk the tightrope today. Love to you all. I’m thankful for this process and believe in us.