Begrudgingly Thankful: What Our Editors Are Reading This Week

A creative writing professor once told me that when I wasn’t feeling inspired, I should just free write: Pick up a pen and keep it in motion until I stumbled upon something resembling inspiration. Well, this Thanksgiving, with my morale soaked in hurricanes and successive waves of COVID-19, I’m not feeling particularly thankful. So here’s to free writing (and reading) my way into gratitude:

Thanks for my dog, who doesn’t know what “pandemic” means but is just glad I’m home, always home. Thanks for my home and the friends who send postcards to it, and the partner who just asked Google to turn up Louis Armstrong on Spotify.

Thanks to the God who doesn’t keep records of wrongs but likely keeps count of our available hospital beds — which are dwindling, and the number of refugees we annually welcome into the U.S., which —soon and very soon — will swell from 15,000 to 125,000.

Thanks to the November green tomatoes clinging stubbornly to the vine. Thank you for wine, sanctified and otherwise. Thanks to the God who lets me whine at Her every night for more to be thankful about.

And thanks to these writers for writing these words:

1. What Warnock's Critics Get Wrong About the Black Baptist Tradition
White pastors routinely critique the U.S. But when Black pastors do the same, they’re called “un-American.” By Mitchell Atencio via sojo.net.

2. Lost In a (Mis)Gendered Appalachia
“Nina Simone was a mountain girl, is what I’m saying. I am asking you to picture her that way, to set aside what you know of this iconic artist and think of her rural beginnings. Her entire experience, her whole world before jazz, before fame and legend and fight, was the Jim Crow South and the hills of the Blue Ridge.” By Leah Hampton via Guernica.

3. Under a New Administration, Can Refugee Resettlement Be De-Politicized?
Resettlement agencies plan to hold Biden to his promise of admitting 125,000 refugees annually. By Gina Ciliberto via sojo.net.

4. 400 Years After the ‘First Thanksgiving,’ the Tribe Who Fed the Pilgrims Continues to Fight for Their Land Amid Another Epidemic
The Wampanoag expressed a feeling of “eerie” déjà vu, marveling at how much hasn’t changed in 400 years in some respects. The tribe is in the midst of a fight for survival on two fronts: fighting to survive during a global pandemic and fighting to maintain control of their land. By Olivia B. Waxman via Time

5. How Close Did We Come to a Coup?
The Coup-o-meter is sticking around, just in case. By Lexi McMenamin via sojo.net.

6. The Year of No Thanks
“None of us should be thankful for this terrible year. But, if we stop and reflect, we see that we can be thankful through it. 2020 needn’t have the final word and steal from us the possibility of thanks and joy.” By Diana Butler Bass via dianabutlerbass.substack.com.

7. Living in the Tension Between Grief And Gratitude This Holiday Season
A longing for "normal" holidays could rob us of experiencing true gratitude. By Kent Annan and Jamie D. Aten via sojo.net.

8. Christmas Dies Hard
The middle of a global pandemic might seem like a good time to cut back on holiday excess. But we live in America. By Amanda Mull via The Atlantic.

9. Thousands of Faith Leaders Ran For Office in Brazil
Evangelicals have growing political dominance, but some pastors want to divorce faith from autocracy. By Raphael Tsavkko Garcia via sojo.net.

10. A Preparation Timeline for Your Virtual Thanksgiving
“If your family selected Microsoft Teams as your Thanksgiving platform, you don’t need to add decorations because your family clearly wanted the stark, desolate, lunar landscape of Microsoft Teams.” By Kerry Elson via The Belladonna.