I’ve lost count of how many Thanksgiving dinners our community has shared over the years, but one thing never fades: the quiet excitement that rises in me each time. There is always that familiar flutter, and the same hopeful question returns—“Who will I meet this time? Which beautiful souls will cross my path tonight?”

It has never really mattered where we gathered. Whether in our own community spaces or under the sacred roofs of churches, synagogues, or other houses of worship, the walls were never the point. What mattered was the spirit we carried into those spaces.

Over the years, every person I’ve met at these Thanksgiving gatherings has left a small, luminous mark on my heart. Being surrounded by people who are committed to kindness, openness, and diversity has always filled me with a deep and steady gratitude.

This year was no different. Once again, I found myself meeting wonderful new friends—and feeling how our differences can bring richness, depth, and perspective. One speaker reflected, “Most of us here love God.” Another captured the whole evening in a single phrase: a sense of belonging.

And so I’ll close with this: It felt as if everyone in that room stood on the gentle, hopeful side of the world—the side where kindness gathers, where connection grows, where belonging is not claimed but shared. We were not all part of the same community, yet we stood together on the side of respect and the side of love.

Above all, we were united in one quiet certainty: we chose to belong to the side of goodness in the world.

By Neslihan Ozgen