Thanksgiving Day

 

"I invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a Day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwells in the heavens.

And I recommend to them that they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union."

Abraham Lincoln, Proclamation of Thanksgiving, 3 October 1863

There are times when we fall to our knees and thank God for all His blessings and tender mercies.

And there are other times when we refuse to bend or bow, and to defer to anything but ourselves, in a kind of careless self-sufficiency and foolish pride.

And then God brings us down to our knees first, as he has done for me and for us all, to remind us, in His loving kindness, of who we are, and how to be grateful for all that we have been given.

"We pray for the big things, and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small, and yet really not so small, blessings.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer


"Love does not make you weak, because it is the source of all strength— but it makes you see the nothingness of the illusion of strength on which you depended before you knew it."

Léon Bloy

I remember you all in my thoughts and prayers.

And I thank God for allowing an old man to continue to exchange greetings with his friends around the world, and at times bring a little light and joy to their hearts, as they do for him.

Be kind to those who are around your table today, even those who may be 'difficult.'

We all have them.  And some of us might even be them.
 
Need little - Want less - Love more.

For those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Our Hardened, Wayward Hearts

 

"They have become foolish in their reasoning, and their senseless minds are darkened."

Romans 1:21

"They do not see the image of Almighty God before them, and ask themselves what He wishes.  And, for the same reason that they do not please Him, they succeed in pleasing themselves.  Hence, they become both self-satisfied and self-sufficient; – they think they know just what they ought to do, and that they do it all; and in consequence they are very well content with themselves, and rate their merit very high, and have no fear at all of any future scrutiny into their conduct."

John Henry Newman

"We pray for the big things, and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small, and yet really not so small, blessings.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Flossenbürg

“People with advantages are loathe to believe that they just happen to be people with advantages.  They come readily to define themselves as inherently worthy of what they possess; they come to believe themselves 'naturally' elite; and, in fact, to imagine their possessions and their privileges as natural extensions of their own elite selves.”

C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite

"Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings."

William Arthur Ward

"Since God has accepted you to be among the holy people that He loves, you must clothe yourselves with tender mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.  Make allowances for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you.  Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must also forgive others.  Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which brings us all together in harmony.  And let the peace of the Lord rule in your hearts.   For as members of one body you are called to live in peace.  And always be thankful."

Colossians 3:12-15


Stocks managed to levitate higher in exceptionally light holiday trading.

VIX has continued to decline down to recent lows. 

The Dollar dropped sharply again.

Gold and silver managed to rally up a bit.

Tomorrow is the US holiday of Thanksgiving.

Friday will be a light half day of market activity.

Happy holiday, and for the rest of you all, please attempt to carry on.

Have a pleasant evening/

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Little Lessons - Repentance, Forgiveness, Thankfulness

 

"'Use your sickle and reap the harvest, for the time to reap has come, because the earth’s harvest is fully ripe.'  So the one who was sitting on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested."

Revelation 14:15-16

“Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man.  It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest."

C. S. Lewis

"By your stubbornness and hardened heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself for the day of revelation of the just judgment of God, who will repay everyone according to his works."

Romans 2:4-8

"Only the humble believe in him and rejoice that God is so free and so marvelous that he does wonders where people despair.  And that is the wonder of all wonders, that God loves the lowly.  God loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak and broken."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"The humble live in continuous peace, while in the hearts of the proud are envy and frequent anger."

Thomas à Kempis

"Nothing from the rising to the setting of the sun is enough for them. Among all others only they are compelled to attack the poor as well as the rich. Plunder, rape, and slaughter they falsely call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace."

Tacitus

Stocks managed to bounce in light trading.

The Dollar fell.

The VIX fell.

Silver rallied while gold finished unchanged.

Looks like a mildly risk on days.

A large amount of economic data tomorrow.

I expect the markets will find a level after Europe goes home and then hold it in very light pre-holiday trade.

Have a pleasant evening.