As each Thanksgiving Day arrives, I like to reflect on the blessings received during the previous year. From what I can gather, this is some of what the Pilgrims did in the autumn of 1621 when they celebrated the first such feast.

A framework for such reflection has helped me in the effort. Over the last two years, members of a local assisted-living community have allowed me to review current events for them.

This group of 25 or 30 people, most of them my age peers, gives me a chance to explore and explain notable happenings on the world, national, or local stage.

Not all our topics are of great importance. This audience shows itself tolerant enough to allow me to comment on less serious events too. I do so knowing that not everyone will be interested in opera or sports, but such subjects frequently bring lighthearted or even comic relief to the world’s pressing concerns.

Last year at this time we were celebrating the election of Barack Obama. His accession to the White House struck most of us as a relief from an administration whose values were difficult to swallow. And we rejoiced in the election of our first African-American president.

Even though the inevitable complexities of the presidency and the surprises it brings have reduced the euphoria we felt last January, I still feel blessed in the choice we made. However, I confess horror at the vilification hurled at Obama by some of the ranters given free rein on talk radio.

I also take as a blessing the new esteem in which the Europeans and other nations now hold the United States. That view of us is essential to our governments efforts to reduce the number and threat of nuclear weapons and to bring about climate control. Despite problems with Russia and China, we have reasonable hopes that they two countries will cooperate with us.

We mourned the death of Ted Kennedy, but at the same time we were thankful for the admiration of much of the nation for his work in the senate. At the end he emerged as a person who had straightened out his life and shown himself a public servant of genuine dedication and great skill. Like others of his fans, I will long remember the rituals of his wake and funeral and the outpouring of public grief.

I also celebrated the emergence of at least three American heroes during this past year. The saga of Chesley Sullenberger, the pilot who expertly ditched his plane in the Hudson River and saved all the passengers and crew members, lifted everyone’s spirits.

So did another captain, New Englander Richard Phillips, who managed to outwit and escape the pirates who had attacked his ship in the Persian Gulf.

And New York Times journalist, David Rohde who, with a fellow captive, tricked his Taliban captors in an Afghan prison camp and shinnied down a steep wall to freedom.

Though the elected leader of Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi, continues to be deprived of her freedom, there are now some signs that the country’s ruling junta may be mellowing somewhat. An initiative on the part of Senator Jim Webb of Virginia gives some small hope for conversation with our government. Long ago, I had the pleasure of being acquainted with Suu’s late husband, Michael Aris,  and have closely followed the fortunes of this heroic woman.

The end to a 25-year-old civil war in Sri Lanka also came as good news. Though the Tamil rebels may have had legitimate complaints, the long trail of deaths on both sides would have been a steep price to pay for a separate state.

Close to home, the rescue of the Boston Globe has cheered my heart. As a member of a newspaper family, and a late-blooming journalist myself, I could not but celebrate its escape from what loomed as possible extinction. Much as I appreciate the glories of online material, I do not consider it an acceptable alternative to the many services that a good newspaper puts into our hands.

These events count as only a few of the many instances of good news that I presented in our meetings. My list of things to be grateful for is not short.

However, I remain painfully aware that much of the world still suffers intolerably. As my extended family ─ and millions of other Americans ─ sit down to a turkey dinner, I think of countless others who do not enjoy our good fortune.

To cite only one cause of suffering and death: almost one billion people around the world lack access to clean drinking water. This fact alone causes one-half of the world’s malnutrition, and leads to many fatal diseases, especially of children.

My hope at this thanksgiving is for the efforts of those who work for the relief of suffering to prosper.