Today we gathered on Onöndowa’ga:’ land, the land of the Seneca, Keepers of the Western Door of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Land that was taken, not given. We came with gratitude, but also with honesty: this table, this home, this abundance exists because others were dispossessed.
We must not look away from that truth, even as we give thanks.
I am thankful for abundance. Not the hoarded abundance of empire, but true abundance: enough for all, meant for all.
We have been taught to believe in scarcity, to fear that there is not enough, to clutch what we have lest our neighbors take it. But this is a lie.
There is enough. There has always been enough.
The systems that manufacture hunger amid plenty are not natural. They are choices. And we can choose differently.
When all are fed, housed, and have a sense of belonging we lose nothing. We gain everything.
I believe in freedom.
Not freedom for some. Freedom for all.
I dream of a world without cages. A world that builds beyond punishment.
Until everyone is free, none of us are truly free. The walls we build around others become the walls that imprison our own souls.
Justice must restore, not destroy. It must heal, not harm.
Today I hold close all those being torn from their homes, their families, their lives.
People being hunted, detained, and disappeared in the name of invisible lines drawn on stolen land.
Borders are not natural. They are invented. And those of us who benefit from settling on stolen land have no moral ground to demand papers from anyone.
May we resist the cruelty done in our name. May we be sanctuary for one another.
We are entitled to nothing. Not this land, not this nation, not this comfort.
Everything is gift. And gifts are meant to be shared, not hoarded. Meant to flow, not to be dammed up behind walls of fear. May we hold loosely what we have been given, knowing it was never truly ours.
We cannot do this work alone. We were never meant to.
The world we long for will not be built by solitary acts of conscience, but by communities bound together in love, holding one another accountable, lifting one another up, and showing up for each other and for our neighbors again and again.
Find your people. Build your communities. That is where liberation lives.
On this day of thanksgiving, may our gratitude be more than words. May it be action.
Feed the hungry. Welcome the stranger. Visit the prisoner. Loose the chains of injustice.
Let our gratitude be disruptive. Let our thanks take the shape of liberation.
And let this not be the work of a single day. A holiday gesture. A seasonal charity.
The hungry are hungry in January.
The stranger is a stranger in July.
The prisoner sits in a cage every single day.
Carry this table forward. Live these commitments not once a year, but every day. Model the world you wish to see, so that others might believe it is possible.
May we all find the courage to build that world together.