Top Ten Things for Which I Am Not Thankful This Year

10. I am not thankful for the vicious political partisanship that rends our nation to the point that genuine political cooperation and compromise for the sake of the greater good appears impossible.

9. I am not thankful for any television show that bears the label “reality.”

8. I am not thankful for fair weather Georgia Bulldog and Atlanta Braves “fans.”

7. I am not thankful for the 24-hour “news” cycle that has produced so many talking heads and so much asinine demagoguery.

6. I am not thankful for the lack of emphasis on the life and teachings and ethics of Jesus that seems to characterize so much of the content of the pronouncements in the public arena by church leaders.

5. I am not thankful for the politics of celebrity or for the celebrity of politics.

4. I am not thankful for the willingness of people to go beyond a humble gratitude and healthy appreciation for their own religious faith and tradition to an arrogant attitude and fearful stance toward the adherents of other religions.

3. I am not thankful for the environmental crises toward which we are almost certainly and most foolishly rushing.

2. I am not thankful for the false divide that is maintained between Christianity and science, a divide to which too many Christians who are not scientists and too many scientists who are not Christians contribute.

1. I am not thankful for people who spend time thinking about the things for which they are not thankful.