I am thankful for rural life, where I run into friends at the store or my son’s basketball game. I’m thankful for a sense of place, rooted in the nation’s rural heartland, and a calling to fight for its future.

I’ve always liked Christmas, even more so as I get older. It’s a special time that accents spiritual life and brings out my reflective side. So on this cold, snowy December morning, I am reflecting on what makes me thankful.

I am thankful for rural life – where I run into friends who tease me, tell me jokes, or just lend a friendly smile when I go to the store or my son’s basketball game. I am thankful for a sense of place – that I am a son of the nation’s rural heartland and remain firmly rooted in it with a calling to fight for its future. I am thankful to have been raised on the land and still have all around me its subtle beauty.

I’m thankful for being part of a family who cares for and embraces our responsibilities to each other. I am grateful for being raised in a way that taught me to make, fix and grow things, as well as to understand, speak and write about things. I am thankful to have the privilege of going to work every day to fight for the values, people, and the way of life in which I believe.

I can never forget that we have serious problems to address. Wealth and income are concentrating across the economy. The middle class is shrinking, as more families face unemployment and insecure retirements. Opportunities and towns are dwindling across rural America. And government has become dysfunctional and unable to respond effectively.

Some of the loudest voices in America – in the advertising and the media – prod us only to get what we can for ourselves and to hold on to it tightly. In our 21st century culture, we’re not very often asked to think about our responsibilities to our families, neighbors, or the less fortunate. That worries me, because no community or nation can be strong unless its people look beyond their selfish interests to their obligation to give something back for the greater good.

But we have the capacity to address each of these problems. One of the greatest gifts we have in America, for which we should be profoundly thankful, is the opportunity to right the wrongs and take control of our destiny through the democratic process. It is up to us to use it.

Nothing ever got better by sitting around complaining. Things get better when ordinary citizens embrace their responsibility to make things better, by the actions they take in their personal lives, communities, organizations, and government to right the wrongs and set a better course. So on this cold snowy December morning I am thankful for each of you who embraces that responsibility.

Contact me, Chuck Hassebrook, with your own comments. Call 402.687.2103, ext. 1018 or email chuckh@cfra.org.