Rev. Michelle's Message November 27, 2025

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

I hope everyone is having, or has had, a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with your friends and family. The Vargas Family is celebrating with our dear friends the Franks in Capitola. It is always a good time at the Franks’ house as they have quite an international group of friends. The Franks themselves are a mixed marriage of a South African and a Swede, and their friends group contains other Swedes and South Africans, as well as a couple of Mexicans. Paco likes to tell people that when we gather with the Franks, I am usually the only American-born person there.

How appropriate for the Thanksgiving holiday, which, at its best, represents a coming together of different cultures for a shared meal and an intentional giving of thanks. It’s interesting that when translated into Spanish, Thanksgiving is usually called Día de Acción de Gracias, which literally means “Day of the Action of Giving Thanks.”

Today is a day that we purposefully and mindfully engage in an “action” of giving thanks. Rather than just fleetingly reflecting on our blessings, we take time to really count them, one by one. And there is so much to be grateful for. Here’s my Top Ten list:

1) A wonderful, loving, supportive husband

2) An amazing, funny, sweet, and vivacious son who lights up my life every single day

3) Both of my parents and my stepmom in basically good health

4) A safe, warm, cozy home filled with things I love

5) The three cats and one dog that make our house a home

6) A strong, healthy body that allows me to explore my world, go on adventures, do fun things, and care for my family

7) A calling/vocation that gives me so much joy and purpose, and allows me to express my God-given talents and strengths

8) A congregation of beautiful, loving, quirky, fun, extraordinary people that I love so much

9) The opportunity to sing in church on Sundays, fulfilling a lifelong dream and bringing me so much joy and purpose 

10) Profound, wonderful, blissful “enoughness”—enough money to have the things my family needs, enough time to pursue hobbies and things I enjoy, enough friends and family to not feel lonely, enough energy to move through my days, enough health to be active and mobile, enough food, enough water, enough warmth, enough shelter, enough rest, enough laughter, enough love. Sure there are things I might like to have “more” of, but the truth is that I have enough. (Thank you to Lynn Swift (Soul of Money) for teaching me this profound concept!)

Here's to all of us being able to know the life-changing experience of ENOUGH this Thanksgiving and throughout the holiday season.

Thanksgiving Blessings,

Rev. Michelle