SOUL FOOD:

I sometimes think we could more aptly call our day of Thanksgiving, Thanksgorging — a day during which we test how much we can eat at one, albeit extended, sitting. The day’s intended focus, thankfulness, seems at best taken for granted, at worst forgotten.

Last week, the Food section in the Los Angeles Times offered plans for a banquet painted in “the colors of Thanksgiving:” ivory (parsnips, celeriac, cipollini), green (savoy cabbage, lima beans, kale and Brussels sprouts), orange (squash, pumpkin, sweet potatoes, persimmons), golden brown (bread, wild mushrooms, walnuts) and red (cranberries, of course).

In all, 22 recipes. From mushroom-walnut stuffing to glazed cipollini with pancetta to sweet potato puree with a hazelnut soufflé top, the full-color photos of the feast delighted by sight and enticed the taste buds.

The sweet potato puree topped with the hazelnut soufflé even appeared to be a snap to whip up. As I clipped it out for my recipe file, I wondered what a 12-page spread on gratitude might look like.

So much do we dwell on what we don’t have and on what we are yet to get, we tend to lose track of the bounty of blessings we already have. As Joni Mitchell observed in her ’70s-era song, “Big Yellow Taxi,” all too often, we don’t know what we’ve got till it’s gone.

It’s a fault I used to think we overcame naturally with age, since it’s difficult to reach a certain age without racking up our share of losses. However successful and fortunate we may be, the years snatch things from us: youth, health, jobs, wealth, friends and loved ones.

Every minute passed is one less minute we have. But the older I get, the more I realize that’s no guarantee we will count and cherish the blessings we have enjoyed, the blessings we retain and blessings yet to come.

Too often, we measure our blessings against what others have. In the midst of much affluence, we can convince ourselves we are nothing short of deprived.

I remember telling the story a number of years ago in this column of encountering a pre-school child who was already practicing this. I met the girl in a checkout line at a local supermarket where, in line ahead of me, she waited with her mother.

Pretty and well-dressed, she combed the hair of an equally lovely Barbie doll clad in a casual yet ever-so-chic outfit. When the child made eye contact with me, I smiled and told her what a beautiful doll I thought she had.

She wrinkled her nose, tilted her head and thrust her shoulders back. She became a tiny portrait of sheer contempt.

“My friend has two,” she informed me while turning her head to make sure her mother was tuned in. “One of hers is a princess,” she emphasized.

Familiarity, we say, breeds contempt and affluence can be a type of familiarity. The stuff of abundance becomes commonplace: We trample it under foot.

On a recent trip I made to China, a tour guide told a story that illustrated this in an unexpected way.

The first American movie he saw as a youth in Communist China was Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times.” This, he was told, is how Americans live: little tramps exploited by wealthy industrialist bosses, scrounging for their next meal.

“Clean your rice bowl, Sun,” his mother would admonish him at dinner. “Remember, American children are going to bed hungry tonight.”

He was taught the Chinese people were — for good reason — the happiest in the world: They lived in a nation where everyone’s needs were met. The punchline lay in the unspoken truth he now knew.

As long as we count our blessings against the blessings of others, our happiness is held by the fickle hands of envy.

This week, I’ve been compiling list of 22 things for which I am thankful. I hope by next Thanksgiving to have the list illustrated in 12-page, homemade spread.

I’m grateful that I believe in God. I’m grateful for his tender mercies, that “in Him [I] live and move and have [my] being,” as it says in the Book of Acts.

I’m grateful for my sight, for my hearing, for my ability to walk and to talk, and for my general health. I’m grateful for my home and the food that’s daily on the table. I’m most grateful for family and friends.

But Thanksgiving and, for that matter, all of the holidays we celebrate this time of year, are not only about being thankful for those things we possess and enjoy. They are also about sharing our blessings with others.

And there may well be 22 ways to do that, too. A recent e-mail from Sojourners Magazine bearing the subject line “No more snowflake sweaters and recycled fruitcakes,” reminded me of some of them.

Among the e-mail’s gift suggestions was a poster featuring a list of Mahatma Gandhi’s “Seven Deadly Social Sins.” In refraining from them, as we try to do with the more well-known Seven Deadly Sins — pride, anger, envy, covetousness, gluttony, lust and sloth — in the process we share our blessings with others.

If you’re not familiar with Gandhi’s Seven Deadly Social Sins, they are: politics without principle; wealth without work; commerce without morality; pleasure without conscience; education without character; science without humanity; and worship without sacrifice.

Each speaks of a way we can too often make our well-being the center of our universe while we neglect the well-being of others. Each, I think, finds its roots in one or more of the Seven Deadly Sins.

All offer fertile ground from which to draw resolutions for the new year, resolutions that begin today and go beyond the usual, quickly abandoned lose 10 pounds, eat less junk food and exercise more.

Each suggests a way to make today, and every day, a day of more giving and less gorging.

MICHÈLE MARR is a freelance writer from Huntington Beach. She can be reached at [email protected].