Giving thanks in Sonoma County: Personal stories show power of gratitude

Nearly four centuries after the first Thanksgiving, Americans of all backgrounds continue to gather each November for a shared meal and a chance to give thanks for the gifts we have been given. It’s also a perfect opportunity to explore the notion of gratitude - of conscious and deliberate reflection on the grace that surrounds us and what we do with the generosity of others.

In Sonoma County, that can take many forms. In the following vignettes, a farmer gives thanks for the seasons and looks for the bright side of whatever nature brings. A spiritual leader cultivates gratitude as an antidote to the negativity that burdens our society. A fire victim is enveloped by the help of his community, and a role model uses his personal gratitude as a springboard for helping others.

The stakes may be higher around this year’s dinner tables as current events raise profound questions about the kind of country we live in and lay bare the wide gaps between haves and have nots. Cultivating gratitude may boil down to finding smaller reasons to feel grateful, as Santa Rosa Police Officer Orlando Macias has done.

“I’m grateful to have made something of an angry and hurt young person - and that was me.”

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Jennifer Branham has learned by working on a Sonoma County farm to be grateful for the seasons, no matter what they bring.

Branham, the 43-year old co-owner of Laguna Farm in Sebastopol, sees both sunny days and storms as opportunities to give the farm something it needs.

While others might view a flood as categorically bad news, for Branham, whose farm is situated on 25 acres along the Laguna de Santa Rosa, it’s an expected event that nourishes the soil. The same is also true for summer scorchers, which ripen the crops and give rise to much-needed breaks.

“There’s always some wonderful benefit that the weather brings, and in Sonoma County it often brings abundance, or it brings change, or it brings rest or it brings fertility,” she said.

Branham came to Laguna Farm 11 years ago to distribute produce, work on environmental stewardship, organize volunteers, hold events and generate community awareness about buying directly from local producers. She worked on the farm’s community supported agriculture program, through which hundreds of local families buy weekly boxes of produce year-round.

Having taken over the business with field manager Ignacio Romero several years ago, Branham said she greatly appreciates that the farm’s founder, Scott Mathieson, sold the operation to her and Romero.

The sense of purpose built into the business fuels her gratitude, making her want to work harder each day, she said. It also supports her unrelenting optimism.

“You can look at the flood as devastating, or you can look at the flood as nourishing. The flood is going to happen either way,” Branham said. “You just get the most out of every situation by being grateful and seeing the bright side, or the sunny side or the glass half full.”

- J.D. Morris

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For Sonoma-based Zen Buddhist priest Kathryn Stark, gratitude is more than a fleeting emotion. It’s a force that informs her daily life.

Stark, 66, works full time as a spiritual support counselor for Hospice by the Bay, providing interfaith chaplain services to patients and their relatives in Sonoma, Napa and Vallejo.

Most of the people she sees, particularly those who are elderly, express deep gratitude for their families, the relationships they’ve forged and the experiences they’ve taken in.

Stark, who needed two years to recover from major injuries sustained in 2005 car crash, said gratitude can come recognizing our own fragility.

“Doing this work clearly makes you grateful for your life because, as my accident taught me, we never know from one moment to the next what’s going to happen,” Stark said. “When I walk out of a visit, and I look up and I breathe the fresh air, it’s just like, I’m so grateful for every moment, because the reality is, we only have the moment.”

An ordained Soto Zen priest and Dharma teacher, Stark believes gratitude can combat many of the negative feelings in the world around us.

“That’s not to say that we shouldn’t feel painful emotions. I think it’s important to know our experience and not turn away from our experience, whatever that is,” Stark said.

“It’s also a really difficult time in our world, in our country and our society ... so it’s not to turn a blind eye to the problems and the needs that are out there. But if we can feel grateful for the blessings that we do have in our life, it can be a great antidote to the negativity.”

Gratitude will be the focus of a homily Stark delivers today at an interfaith service offered by the Sonoma Valley Ministerial Association and hosted by Congregation Shir Shalom at First Congregational Church in Sonoma.

Stark said she plans to focus on the “latitude of gratitude” - exploring the idea that gratitude can be more than a feeling of thankfulness, but also a catalyst for acts of generosity and service.

Stark recalled learning a simple lesson about gratitude from the film “White Christmas,” which she watched while recovering from the car accident.

The song “Count Your Blessings (Instead of Sheep)” inspired her to start consciously bringing to mind the things she was grateful for - and it made a big difference.

It’s a lesson often reinforced by her work as a hospice chaplain, where she is routinely invited into a very private and precious time in others’ lives.

“It’s a really enriching and moving and humbling experience,” she said. “To witness the love within a family ... it’s all such beautiful gifts that we receive in doing the work. I don’t know anybody that’s not really grateful for the experience of having the opportunity to do this.”

- J.D. Morris

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On Sept. 27, a motorist in a passing car flicked a cigarette butt into a pile of dry brush on the side of Highway 101 in Petaluma. That tiny ember grew into flames that climbed into a eucalyptus grove and spread through an entire neighborhood, destroying four homes and damaging 10 more on the east side of the highway.

Bill Folla’s house on Stuart Drive was completely charred, making it uninhabitable. Since 1991, it had been home for Folla’s family, including his wife, Yan, and daughter, Jessie.

An outpouring of support from the community and co-workers helped the 55-year-old Petaluma man and his family get back on their feet.

A group called Helping Petaluma raised $14,000 to offset the insurance deductibles faced by families affected by the fire. The Follas received $1,000. outhland in San Francisco, where Folla works as a plumber, stepped up, too. On a GoFundMe page, 72 people contributed more than $9,300 for the family.

“The response was great,” Folla said. “You don’t really expect it - total strangers reaching out to help you with anything they can. It’s really fantastic, you can’t ask for anything better.”

Bruce Cohn, a 66-year-old real estate appraiser, started Helping Petaluma the day of the fire. The response has been staggering. Donations of money, clothes, furniture, food and services have flowed in.

“It’s incredible,” said Cohn, who mentioned that he had been planning to move from Petaluma before the fire struck. The community showed it can rally for its own, and now he’s staying.

“The people are so open, so warm, so giving,” Cohn said. “For me to leave would be ridiculous.”

For now, the Follas are living in a rental on the west side of Petaluma. They plan to rebuild.

“It’s just so important to know that total strangers care about other people, what’s going on in their lives, and are willing to step up and help when they need it,” Folla said.

- Christi Warren

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Santa Rosa Police Officer Orlando Macias doesn’t believe in the so-called “self made man.”

As a teenager growing up in Windsor, Macias was angry. He saw injustices directed at him and others and took it personally, let his blood boil.

“I hated being judged because of where I lived, who I lived next to, my folks’ socio-economic status,” Macias said. “I was put in English language learner classes, but I didn’t speak Spanish.”

That anger could have led him to trouble, if it weren’t for people in his life: His hard-working parents who demonstrated compassion and community service. His wife who since age 16 saw the good in him. The Novato police officer who showed him the difference police can make in young people’s lives.

“I’m grateful for the advice I’ve been given, the mentors I’ve had, the parents I was blessed to be born to,” Macias said. “I’m grateful for that, but I’m very aware that others don’t have that.”

Today, Macias, 38, tries to be known as the cop who shakes hands with people and wishes them luck, even when he’s booking them into jail. He wants to be the kind of officer who tells a drug addict, “I feel bad because I see what this is doing to you.”

Macias was a school resource officer at Cook Middle School and Elsie Allen High School until last year. He’s passionate about being a protector and role model for young people.

His commencement speech for Elsie Allen’s class of 2015 was a flood of thanks to the students for demonstrating resiliency and allowing him into their lives. He told the class that his biggest fear when he became a police officer in 2007 was “whether or not I would be able to get people to see beyond a badge, see beyond a uniform, see beyond the weapons I must reluctantly carry, and simply see me, Orlando Macias ... someone who truly loves people and yearns to be connected to them.”

When he returned to working patrol, Macias said he asked to work the graveyard shift in southwest Santa Rosa so that young people there would continue seeing a cop with a Latino surname and similar experiences growing up in Sonoma County. He said he wanted to stay connected with the community where he’s worked hard to combat an “us versus them” mentality.

“I’m grateful to have made something of an angry and hurt young person - and that was me,” Macias said. “So why not do that for other people?”

- Julie Johnson