Thank You, Sarah (and everybody else)
I LOVE children’s books and literature. When I was teaching one of my favorite books to share was Laurie Halse Anderson’s Thank you, Sarah. I usually included it as part of my November curriculum. The kids were always amazed, (as was I the first time) to hear the story of Sarah and how she fought to make Thanksgiving a holiday. Sarah was a wife and mother of five in colonial America in the early 1800’s. This “dainty little lady” was every inch an activist. An activist with a “secret weapon”. A PEN. To make Thanksgiving a national holiday, she wrote thousands of letters. Even more astonishing, she inspired thousands of other women to write letters also. These women wrote letters for fifteen years before they accomplished their goal of making Thanksgiving a national holiday. Before, after and during those years, Sarah wrote every time she disagreed with something in her America.
As I look at the state of our country, the “detestable” sin of America mirrors that of Old Testament Israel. Read Kings or Jeremiah or Ezekiel if you don’t believe me. It is overwhelming and I often wonder what I can do. I pray, I vote, I welcome factual, kind conversation. I don’t hate those who don’t agree with me. We may disagree but we’re friends. I recently got very concerned over a Colorado bill that passed in April. I stewed over it for several days before I remembered Sarah. I, too, have a pen, or keyboard! So do you.
The issues of our country are overwhelming and the current political climate is toxic. It seems that there is nothing to be done among us ‘regular’ people. That may be true but we have to try. Whatever the issue that keeps you up at night, pick up your pen or open your laptop! Express yourself , kindly and factually, to newspapers, online sites and law makers. Encourage friends with pens to join you. Margaret Mead said it better than me, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed individuals can change the world. In fact, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
