That is the title of a Protestant hymn we sang in the Presbyterian Church of my youth. The hymn was an expression of gratitude, oddly lacking in our contemporary culture of entitlement and grievance. How can the entitled and aggrieved express gratitude for anything? We either think we deserve our gifts and therefore expect to receive them or we resent that we have been denied what is ours by right. I suspect that the rigidity of the thinking of Grievance Culture does not allow for Thanksgiving.

So I made it through this week safely. My week culminated in a colonoscopy this Friday. My colon looks pretty good, one small polyp, snipped, most likely benign. Anybody who has experienced a colonoscopy knows the procedure itself is a holiday, after undergoing the preparation. The prep, at least here in the U.S. of A, involves a purging of the colon by drinking about three litres of water, after taking a course of purgative salts. At the end one is dehydrated and exhausted from the purge. General anaesthesia is a “consummation devoutly to be wished.”

Post procedure, I had a meal, my first solid food in about thirty six hours. I enjoyed a bowl of soup that tasted a tad salty, but I actually needed the salt. Then I came home, texted friends and family that I had the procedure and was OK.

The solid foods fast was not bad at all. I realized we build up a lot of anxiety around not eating. We in the developed world can afford to fast for a day and probably should, not necessarily as a religious obligation, but to allow our bodies to use some stored fat, and to rest. Judaism, Christianity and Islam all have prescribed fasts of varying lengths. So if G-D expects it, fasting isn’t such a bad idea.

I’m looking forward to working out again, recommitting to healthy eating, and learning new stress reduction skills.

My next round of medical examinations and procedures will be as simple as an eye exam, and as complicated as a hip replacement.

Laissez les bon temps roulez!