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So I’m going to share something with you, our listeners. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday in many respects. Thanksgiving is a day with no expected gift-giving, minimal commercialism and build-up on radios and tv. Thanksgiving is a suspended day in time when all that matters is family, food, and maybe football. It’s focused on gratitude, plain and simple. And yet here I am, discussing mask-wearing and COVID-19 tests and the very-present reality that I will not be seeing my family for Thanksgiving this year. I never thought, one year ago, that I would be saying that, and I’d imagine many of your Thanksgiving plans look different this year too.
Is there space for gratitude, in the midst of division, chaos, and overcrowded hospitals? How can we stop and say “thanks” when medical workers are at a staff shortage because they’ve either tested positive for COVID-19, or are in quarantine because they’ve been exposed? How can we pause for Thanksgiving when so many lives are at stake?
The truth is, we can’t. At least, we cannot to the fullest expression of Thanksgiving that many of us are used to. And yet, in the midst of the chaos, the uncertainty, and the awful virus that plagues our country, there might be a way to express gratitude. There might just be a silver lining.
Today I speak to Kate Basi. Author and liturgical composer Kathleen M. Basi is a mother of three active boys (read that: always breaking something) and one chromosomally-gifted daughter. Her books on faith formation are available from Liguori and Our Sunday Visitor, and her music for Catholic worship is available through WLP/GIA as well as Simply Liturgical Music.
I asked Kate to sit down with me and chat about the lens of gratitude she discusses in her most recent Liturgical Singer article, an NPM-created publication for cantors and other singers alike. Kate’s perspective is honest and real, filled with motherhood and ministry, and is just the thing I needed to start this week’s unconventional Thanksgiving.
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Kathleen M. Basi- Bio
Author and liturgical composer Kathleen M. Basi is a mother of three active boys (read that: always breaking something) and one chromosomally-gifted daughter. Her books on faith formation are available from Liguori and Our Sunday Visitor, and her music for Catholic worship is available through WLP/GIA as well as Simply Liturgical Music. She is the founder of intentional-catholic.com, a web-based ministry seeking to connect our Catholic faith to the real, practical situations of daily life. She is available to present evenings of prayer, reflection, and song at parishes... or at least, will be, when that's the kind of thing we do again! www.kathleenbasi.com/
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