Summary

What would you be able to enjoy today if all you had was what you were grateful for yesterday? Not much, I’m guessing. I’m working on that one all the time. From seemingly little things like “Thank you for hot water and carpeting.” to “Thank you for my life and my friends and family.”  Let’s work this one together. Gratitude, thanksgiving--not just the day-- the act of thanksgiving--is the basis for everything.

We’ll take a look at how we came to celebrate Thanksgiving, and talk about why our annual, formal Thanksgiving should in part be an anchor; Thanksgiving Day should be an annual anchor, a more structured form of and a model for our daily thanksgiving. Yes, heartfelt thanksgiving needs to be a daily event. And a planned a planned daily event at that. It is good for our hearts and souls, and good for the planet.

Transcript

What would you be able to enjoy today if all you had was what you were grateful for yesterday? Not much, I’m guessing. I’m working on that one all the time. From seemingly little things like “Thank you for hot water and carpeting.” to “Thank you for my life and my friends and family.”  Let’s work on this one together. Gratitude, thanksgiving--not just the day-- the act of thanksgiving--is the basis for everything.

We’ll take a look at how we came to celebrate Thanksgiving, and talk about why our annual, formal Thanksgiving Day should in part be an anchor; Thanksgiving Day should be an annual reminder, a more structured form of and a model for our daily thanksgiving. Yes, heartfelt thanksgiving needs to be a daily event. And a planned daily event at that. It is good for our hearts and souls, and good for the planet.

If you are planning on having turkey and “all the trimmings” on Thanksgiving, thank Sarah Josepha Hale. Hale was a strong and accomplished woman, and likely to have been the strongest voice in supporting Thanksgiving as a national holiday--and certainly the earliest. Despite what tradition may try to tell us, it is unlikely that the first Thanksgiving was celebrated with turkey--that was one of Hale’s lesser contributions.

Later on in 1863, at the height of the Civil War, President Lincoln issued a Thanksgiving Proclamation. “The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies...In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict...fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.” In the middle of a horrific war which saw Americans killing more fellow Americans than were killed by foreign enemies in all of our other wars combined, Lincoln saw just cause to give thanks and to pray for healing. Where is our thankfulness; where are our thoughts and prayers for healing? Am I alone in observing that we have swapped thankfulness and healing thoughts for arguing, anger and making the other person or group wrong? At the end of the war, in Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Speech, after the North had won the war the South had started, here is part of what he said in his address to the nation, “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds…”. Malice toward none, and charity toward all. Doesn’t it seem like we have more and more malice, and less and less charity? And isn’t that exactly the opposite of what we need?