Epic Thanks: Harry Potter, Super Heroes And Harvest

I found myself mesmerized by the Harry Potter trailer.

Image by Mickey van der Stap.

I have watched every movie in the series, captivated by the storytelling. I know that in the seventh installment of the series, Dumbledore is dead. Voldemort (the villain) has taken control of the world. Harry and his friends are on the run. Their job is to defeat the villain. They must perform a series of tasks before tracking him down to save the world.

The Dream Of A Rescue

That’s the dream, isn’t it?

No matter how bad things get, a hero will arrive in the last scene. Just as the battle, game or movie is almost lost; the world is rescued and saved.

It’s story telling at its best. It’s entertainment. It’s spellbinding. It’s magical.

We are all waiting for our Superman, our Wonder Woman, our Harry Potter, our Prince Charming, our Powderpuff Girls, to show up and save the day. We want to be rescued.

Adolescent Thinking

That thinking is juvenile. That belief that someone has enough fortitude, guns, money or wisdom may be youthful. Yet it is far from reality. It is adolescent.

Adolescent behavior drove the American economy to the brink of collapse. Irresponsibility and incompetence seized the sandbox. Greedy know-it-alls, free from helicopter parental supervision, gambled with other people’s money and left a mess for someone else to clean.

Political leadership played to the crowd. They have harrumphed grandly, stuck to principles already revealed as nonsense, donned dark suits, furrowed brows and rhetoric rants, and fooled no one. Clueless children drive the train as it hurtles toward an abyss of stalemate.

Where are Harry Potter and his friends to save the day? Where is Rambo? Where is Sigourney Weaver playing Lt. Ripley combating aliens?

Forget that delusional thinking. There are no stars to wish upon, no heroes lining up for last-second touchdowns. It is up to us.

Grownup Thinking

We have to be the grownups. We have to see reality as it is. We have to make the small decisions that will add up to a better day. We have to gather in communities of compassion. We have to exercise good judgment. We have to perform random acts of kindness. We have to adopt practices like humility and self-restraint.

This is the time for our communities to step up. It is time for us to put aside our bickering, our posturing, our monumentally irrelevant fussing over trivial things.

Time To Be Grateful

This is the time for us to be grateful. To be the community of acceptance and inclusivity. To serve. To give away what we can. To pay attention to others. To create safe spaces where illusions of superiority are set aside. To hold hands with others and stare into Chilean mines with courage and confidence.

This is the time for us to give thanks. For all we have. For family, friends, colleagues and neighbors. For food on the table and a roof over our head.

It is time to return to being stewards bound to one another. To offer love and life as citizens, family and members of a greater community. We should stop behaving as if this creation, nature, the universe, the Earth, belongs to us, and in the economy of scarcity, compelled us to fight each other for control.

It is time to harvest the fields, share with one another and give epic thanks.

Please join us in this global celebration of epic thanks and gratefulness. Epic Thanks seeks to change the world through the power of gratitude. It is about harnessing social media for good. During the past two years, this global event built two classrooms and a library in Arusha, Tanzania. Visit Epic Thanks site to learn more, and to bring your grateful heart to the party by sharing your gratitude, and giving in honor of that for which you’re most thankful. This is the last in the series for Epic Thanks: Tweetsgiving 2010.