By Jeffrey A. Tucker at Brownstone dot org.

[The following is an excerpt from Jeffrey Tucker's book, Spirits of America: On the Semiquincentennial.]

It's no longer fashionable to pray before meals, especially with guests around. Don't want to offend anyone, invoke a god someone else rejects, or otherwise be seen as old-fashioned or superstitious. I get it, and I too feel the sense that we should all just sit down and start eating.

But you know what? No matter how long the habit of not praying before meals has been with us - is it decades or a half-century or more? - it always seems like something is missing. Something is supposed to happen that does not happen. When we start eating, I cannot shake the sense that we are not supposed to be doing that.

Maybe it is because I was raised in a very religious home, and Dad always used the family prayer before meals to either make a point to the kids or train them in how to practice piety and gratitude.

Yes, that is it: thankfulness. This is the theme of the fourth chapter of Eric Sloane's 1973 book on the Bicentennial, a mini-treatise on what America was and could be again. His theme concerning thankfulness reflects a bit on the holiday of Thanksgiving.

It long predates the founding. It started in 1621 as a copy of the Indian tradition. It took place in June. It gradually moved from the time of George Washington all the way to FDR when it finally landed as the fourth Thursday of November.

It is intriguing that it ranks among the top favorite American holidays, has no precedent in the religious calendar, and doesn't seem to be practiced in other countries. Sloane believes that America had a unique appreciation of thankfulness because we built the country from a native land into the greatest country on earth, all the while never leaving our historical roots.

Maybe that is right. Regardless, he is also correct to say in 1973 that the attitude of gratitude toward our blessings seemed to be dying. We stopped at some point even imagining our lives without material plenty and thereby took it all for granted, thus no longer giving thanks. Why give thanks for that to which one is entitled?

It's true that Thanksgiving has become rather humdrum as compared with when I was a kid. It was a big deal back then because we rarely had big meals. We had small meals and never went out to eat. It was mostly the same thing over and over, not because my parents were poor but rather because they learned frugality from their parents.

So when the whole family would gather around a huge turkey, vast rolls and veggies, and pies everywhere, it was quite a sight and a feast. Now one wonders why we bother except as performance art. We eat great food daily and have huge meals all the time. We order from menus with 30 choices and get what we want. The stores are filled with endless choice.

Where is the distinct experience of this one meal? For our ancestors, Thanksgiving was preceded by a long period of fasting. That does not mean not eating. It means eating plain food, less food, not much food, staying trim and fit, denying ourselves, and otherwise working hard. The meal of Thanksgiving was a symbol of plenty for which people thanked God and his blessings.

The mealtime prayer was an acknowledgement that we deserve nothing - nature is barren and dangerous - and yet blessings have been bestowed upon us. Food is only one of them. It is for nourishment. But there are so many more. We dare not devour it without considering the possibility of its absence. So too with all our material possessions.

Praying is also a way of saying that our blessings will not change us into spoiled and entitled children but rather remind us of to whom we owe real thanks. It is an act of humility. It brings people together. And like a good toast at cocktail hour, a prayer for meals becomes a community activity, something memorable that people can share as one.

Just practically speaking, it signals: time to eat. If nothing else, that serves...