In this season we are encouraged, fittingly, to express our gratitude. In that spirit, herewith a few items plucked from the contemporary scene for which we all ought to be truly thankful:

a) On the federal level, at least, we can be grateful for the survival of a system of government that remains, despite all efforts at reform, resistant to hegemony. Joe Biden has indeed won the presidency – yes, he has – but not an unfettered reign. He faces a Congress split nearly evenly down the middle; a House of Representatives with a friendly majority, but the slimmest one in decades, and a Senate which will, probably, remain with the party opposite. However it shakes out, it will make pursuit of an impetuous legislative agenda virtually impossible. Not to mention a Supreme Court which now has a firm majority of justices who have no wish to do Congress’ job for them and will not be inclined to fabricate any law the congress can’t muster up the votes to pass through the constitutionally outlined means. Divided government means a check against the more reckless legislative impulses. One hopes that in due course we will have occasion to feel the same relief and gratitude here in Colorado.

b) We ought to be thankful to former Gov. Bill Owens for injecting rationality and wisdom into the ongoing theatrical production that is the Trump campaign’s legal challenges of the election results and claims of mass systemic election fraud. Gov. Owens, with characteristic thoughtfulness, posted on Facebook earlier this week, “The US presidential election is over: former Vice President Joe Biden has defeated President Donald Trump, by more than 6 million popular votes and by 306 to 232 in the Electoral College… For the good of the country and our democracy President Trump needs to respect the will of the voters, accede to the wishes of the electorate, and help prepare the way for the 46th President of the United States, Joe Biden. And – no matter our own personal political views – we should, as Americans, do the same.”

He is, of course, absolutely correct. Surely there were irregularities here and there, and perhaps even individual instances of fraud (as there have, and always will be, in any election) and those should be investigated and dealt with accordingly. But the allegations of widespread fraud and conspiracy are no more grounded than four years ago when Democrats made similar cries (and many have not stopped since). Our system works, and our institutions hold, and we can be grateful for leaders like Gov. Owens who are there to remind of this, when we need reminding.

c) We can be thankful for periodic episodes of unintended governmental transparency, like that which we witnessed earlier this week from the COGCC. It seems the agency was test-driving a new email system, and in so doing sent out a sample hearing schedule, assigning the oil companies names like “Bad Oil and Gas”, “Snake Oil Company”, “Here We Go Again”, and “The Lorax”, a reference to a Dr. Seuss character which warms against ecological destruction. One entry listed the case number as “666”.

It’s good to know what the regulators really think about the people they regulate. Transparency can be liberating – the COGCC can now, presumably, dispense with any lingering pretense of being fair and impartial. Thank goodness we have put that myth to bed.

d) Okay, perhaps that last one was a little too sardonic to comply with the spirit. I should like, therefore, to end with a recognition that we do indeed have much to be thankful for in this nation. Whatever theatrics may accompany it, power is being transferred peacefully, which in the context of history up to and including the present day remains remarkable. We are keeping warm this evening thanks to American produced natural gas, and able to travel, if we need to, safely and socially distanced in our cars thanks to American produced oil. And thanks to American (and other Western) pharmaceutical innovation operating in a (somewhat) free market, recently loosed from bureaucratic millstones, we will have a vaccine that will, in due course, emancipate us from the grip of pandemic.

This and so much else. Gratitude, for the big things, is all we have to offer. How do we repay a civilizational patrimony that offers us, for instance, the St. Matthew’s Passion by J.S. Bach, or access at our fingertips to the works of Shakespeare, or the Oxford English Dictionary, or anybody of information that a battalion of monks working several lifetimes could not accumulate? Or a system of government that allows us to live in relative tranquility with those with whom we share, simultaneously, national communion and passionate differences?

With gratitude, at least, to our nation, our forebearers, and our Creator. Happy Thanksgiving.