In this holiday weekend of Thanksgiving, and as we head into the annual season of giving and receiving, we asked several community leaders to reflect on what, really, there is to be thankful for.

Here are their messages of thanks and of hope.

We are all creative, whether in music, literature, politics, raising children, feeding the hungry, sharing love, or a host of other ways. On Thanksgiving we pause to give thanks for the people who gave us these talents and helped us develop them. But most of all, we give thanks that there is a Creator who ultimately shares his creative nature with all of us in some measure.

It is the act of giving thanks that takes us out of ourselves to realize that we are all interconnected with one another and with all through the God who made us all.

We can become mired in the moment, seeing only a tottering economy; violence in our hearts, our homes, and on our streets; the erosion of solid values that keep us together as a community.

It is giving thanks that helps us step out of the darkness into the light.

Gratitude opens our horizons to see beyond ourselves, to laugh at our foibles, and to stand in awe of the marvels of everyday existence.

Thanksgiving gives us the "gracias," the graces to appreciate who we are, but also to realize that we are parts of an enormous and beautiful mosaic that is best appreciated from a wider perspective.

Gratitude also engages us to be even more creative, to shine even more brightly, and to widen our perspective to a world beyond our own whose beauty is unfathomable and where love is everlasting.

This November day is a reminder of an attitude that benefits us every day as we praise the One who is our origin and our goal, the God from whom all blessings flow.

Larry Silva is Honolulu bishop of the Roman Catholic Church in Hawaii.