Thanksgiving? What’s all this then?

Yes, once again, I have neglected my blog all year only to remember that it exists when I remember its time for the re hack of my annual ….

“What’s all this then about Thanksgiving” posting…..

William Sydney “O. Henry” Porter, author of ”The Gift of The Magi” believed that, “There is one day that is ours. Thanksgiving Day is the one-day that is purely American.”

Me and other amateur hacks and pundits, have always felt compelled to write FOR and ABOUT Thanksgiving, which I think, is kind of the testimony of its uniqueness, more than any other day, in the American psyche. A time when, timely as the autumn leaves, I easily can pull from the recesses of my mind, thoughts and remembrances and ponder Thanksgiving in my life.

Year in and year out, I am moved by the sublime, prolific and axiomatic iconography of what it is to be an American in the Thanksgiving celebration.

Whether for financial or atheistical reasons most of us trying to ignore the ‘crazed consumerism’, with its almost entirely molested, synthetic marketing sheen; so quickly some of us are already sick of Christmas….but Thanksgiving ~ I mean com'on!

Thanksgiving, in its origins, traditions and celebration here in America, conjures the specter of togetherness and the act of rendering thanks, expressing gratitude, depending on what or who you believe, to fate or to God or to the grand wheel of life for its favors, mercies and blessings and for our lives, in whatever state of affairs we find them in during this time of year…and seemingly, most especially this year.

This time, every year, for centuries, there is mysterious and simultaneous pulse; we pause to preserve a moment with a pure, still heart, and let there be a celebration of thankfulness; the actualization of expressing our inner gratitude for the blessings and the kindnesses we’ve received.

It's noted by the American poet, John Clayton, that, "Christians were instructed to serve others, and the thanksgiving was for the grace of God and the fact that God offered a way for man to return to a positive relationship with Him".

This moment in the America calendar is the quintessence of thanksgiving, and, in its expression, regardless of how jaded and hardened we have become, is the very antithesis of what goes on at Christmas.

Just so we are all on the same page here, for a moment, lets get rid of the turkey and pumpkin pie and any traditional holiday trappings and their American inferences; leave only the state of and the gift of thankfulness.

Thankfulness is a uniquely human response; gratitude involves memory of the past, awareness of the present, and trust for the future; it is undeniably and preeminently a human response.

Better said by playwright and human rights activist, Victor Hugo, "To give thanks in solitude is enough. Thanksgiving has wings and goes where it must go. Your prayer knows much more about it than you do."

I think that’s it. I think that THIS is the essence of what Thanksgiving has always been about in our history of endless struggle, our perpetual ‘work in progress’ status, and what has been quintessentially American about it. More so, why we need to especially remember these things right, today and from this moment going forward.

The act of thanksgiving doesn't discriminate or discount or divide. Whatever or whomever the people, whatever the belief or the name used for God, whatever the origin of one's mother or father, Thanksgiving has been the one day in America when we forget the madness that whips us up into a froth; be it our financial situation, familial stresses, our political, racial, religious or sexual proclivity; we have since the very beginnings of our nation, paused for a day of thanksgiving, gathered together and enjoyed our blessings; large and small; enjoyed 'the bountiful harvest' from our toil of the year past.

It is 'give us your tired, your hungry, your poor, your huddled masses" in practice; it is the secular equivalent of the sacrament for Americans; by its practice, you BECOME American.

Thanksgiving Day is and has always been a joyous family festival during which, almost unconsciously, we migrate, no matter where we are, to be with friends and family and we take a moment to be awash in the love of those we love and share ours with them and those we see too seldom. We need this moment, now more than ever, when we find ourselves in a time in the history of our society, that it feels, less than ever, there is accordance or any clear answers to anything

Amidst the woes of unemployment, diminished resources, loved ones far away or lost to us forever, you can still hear the faint chatter of native sons and immigrants, talking about their discoveries of life this year and the living that made those discoveries clear.

Thanksgiving in America is when we examine what we have, ourselves and each other and the whole upon our lives, as well we should. Less than before, but there is food on the table; increasingly and oddly parenthetical at times, we have friends and people we really do care about who really do care about us; far flung, estranged and (charmingly or otherwise) dysfunctional, we are, on Thanksgiving Day, a family. A day when all of us pause and ponder, no matter how small we see it, if we see it all during the year, the abundance of our blessings in America. We are possibly at this one moment as a people, on the brink of re discovering the true pleasures and freedoms of life here in America; just then, Thanksgiving re affirms its powerful hold on the collective American consciousness.

Thanksgiving has, to say the least, evolved; from the original, mythic celebration of the Pilgrim fathers as well as other early ‘harvest festivals’; no matter the meanings, patriotic, ideological or political intentions, global-societal distractions, proliferation of football games, “Black Friday” shopping mall insanity; every year on Thanksgiving Day, we some how manage to continue to extract a new poignant chapter in the interconnected narrative that is forever electroplated to the 4th Thursday of November, when we feel the tug of an integral annual habit to migrate to a specific GPS coordinate, to collectively express gratitude for the small blessings we have in our lives.

Before we even knew what was going on, Thanksgiving has been engrained in the DNA of who we are; offering us an opportunity to not just to remember, but reflect on the history of how far America has come, since before we were cognizant or contributing members of society. From that collective history, recent and traditional, we examine and extract by osmosis the inimitability and inclusiveness of what it is to be American.


Its interesting (to me) how we Americans, throughout our history, find and re sanctify the ‘better angles of our nature’ in our darkest hours; through the cycles of years, events, proclamations and changes; through the various incarnations; we find ourselves tumbling through history; picking up pieces of our collective thought along the way; and become the fulcrum of balance for everything we have been and everything we are going to be in ‘this American Life’.


In 1789, the perennial First American, George Washington, proclaimed a National Day of Thanksgiving with these words:

“Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God,…both Houses of Congress have requested me "to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed… that we may then all unite in … humble thanks for …for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; and particularly…the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed…"

In contrast to the current Queen of Thanksgiving, Martha Stewart, Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of then popular Godey's Lady's Book deserves over due recognition as the Mother of the American Thanksgiving and really deserves a special Thanksgiving Day postage stamp (while stamps still exist).

After a long and tenacious letter writing and editorial campaign by Mrs. Hale, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday in November of thanksgiving in the year 1863; one of the nation's darkest and divisive times in American history; strangely and fittingly reminiscent in ways to our national posture today.

The following editor's column was part of the long campaign by Sarah Josepha Hale to get Thanksgiving accepted as a national holiday in the United States.

"We are most happy to agree with the large majority of the governors of the different States -- as shown in their unanimity of action for several past years, and which, we hope, will this year be adopted by all -- that the LAST THURSDAY IN NOVEMBER shall be the DAY Of NATIONAL THANKSGIVING for the American people.

"… when the noise and tumult of wordiness may be exchanged for the laugh of happy children, the glad greetings of family reunion, and the humble gratitude of the Christian heart….

"…drink, in the sweet draught of joy and gratitude to the Divine giver of all our blessings, the pledge of renewed love to the Union, and to each other; and of peace and good-will to all men".

In 1850, amid a deluge of forces that culminated into the Civil War, the poet and Atlantic Monthly founder, John Greenleaf Whittier, published the poem "The Pumpkin" in which the tradition of Thanksgiving is described in rich and familiar symbolism; as a time of remembrance and return; a celebration of abundance, both of sustenance, of love, of the family gathering.

Oh! On Thanksgiving day, when from East and from West,
From North and from South comes the pilgrim and guest;
When the gray-haired New Englander sees round his board
The old broken links of affection restored,
When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more,
And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before,
What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye?
What calls back the past, like the rich Pumpkin pie?

Oh, fruit loved of boyhood! The old days recalling,
When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling!
When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin,
Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!
When we laughed round the corn-heap, with hearts all in tune,
Our chair a broad pumpkin,—our lantern the moon,
Telling tales of the fairy who travelled like steam
In a pumpkin-shell coach, with two rats for her team!

Then thanks for thy present! None sweeter or better
E'er smoked from an oven or circled a platter!
Fairer hands never wrought at a pastry more fine,
Brighter eyes never watched o'er its baking, than thine!
And the prayer, which my mouth is too full to express,
Swells my heart that thy shadow may never be less,
That the days of thy lot may be lengthened below,
And the fame of thy worth like a pumpkin-vine grow,
And thy life be as sweet, and its last sunset sky
Golden-tinted and fair as thy own Pumpkin pie!

WAIT! Take a moment…read it again but let go and let the traditional, sing song charm of this poem’s character transport you to Thanksgiving Days past and hoped for.

Wow…ok we can continue…

So, after what seems like a never-ending storm in American society, it seems to me that this year, in our moment of Thanksgiving of our collective blessings, we should search our selves and find renewed in the hope and faith in the ideal that is the best of America. Lets approach the coming year of inevitable, uneasy transition, un-navigated political and economic futures, and remember how lucky we are as a society and a culture and who we are as Americans.

Really? Nothing? OK here is a primer…a ‘mantra’ to get you there this Thursday.

Think of how many times it seemed America seemed irretrievably close so close to losing the best of us as Americans. Place that in the larger context of infinite history; how much longer we could possibly go on.

Now, hear the words of President Lincoln's Thanksgiving Day proclamation of 1863; picture his humble beginnings, son of uneducated farmer pioneers; Lincoln’s life is an irrefutable demonstration of just how much is possible in America; his words articulate and epitomize the truest meaning of hope and peace and gratefulness of blessings received; all the things of Thanksgiving in America are.

Like a psalm or incantation, it transports you to a time of rebirth and transition; at the heart of a spirit that is rapidly becoming extinct; a spirit that Abraham Lincoln used to characterize and embody America and, "the better angels of our nature."

"The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.

"In the midst of a civil war of unequaled 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; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

"Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years, with large increase of freedom".

"No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy". "It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole
American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and 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, tranquility and Union".

That one part really gets me: “…and 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, tranquility and Union".

Take this moment, with the future ahead in mind; this one moment when an entire nation, now so divided, so in need, will for one day, pause for a long breath and be thankful together; set aside that which divides us and take advantage of this one special moment in America and BE more fundamentally thankful for the simple and proverbial "small blessings" in your life; be more thankful for the people and neighbors and society that make “our” life as a whole as well as those that make it better; take this moment to render a remembrance that will stay with you and, through habit, make you more readily grateful to and for the people around you; remember that harmony makes small things grow; lack of it makes great things decay.

Small things. Small blessings. Easy things. Affordable, yet priceless offerings to the intricate web of our society.

Set gratitude as the cornerstone of your being and viscerally you will find yourself giving a regular heartfelt "Thank you"...and thus start the cycle. In re-learning the practice of thanking people we recognize our dependence on them and them on us; we develop a keener sense of just how closely tied our fates are on "this green and muddy stone".

The all but extinct "Thank You" to a brother, a sister, a spouse, a parent, a child, a neighbor; the clerk at the store you’ve been to a thousand times; that person you pass in the hall or the street everyday.

Thanksgiving Day! Awesome! Yes, let's absolutely give thanks…to everyone and for everything. Is it too easy and simplistic to say that thoughts of Thanksgiving are the kind of thoughts that we should have all year long, you say? Of course it is, but that doesn’t make it a bad idea or mean we shouldn’t TRY and get there. How do we do that?

Ancient Buddhist teachings say…

“A jug fills drop by drop.” …and…

“The mind is everything. What you think you become.”

We do what know and do that until it is not just what we do but who we are. Implement in our daily lives, that there is always time for kindness, even if the moment passes and it dawns on you that “THAT” was one of those moments, go back and act on that kindness.

Extend kindness to others through the year with out judgment or assumption of their situation or how they got there and you will find that your life is overflowing with a overpowering Thanksgiving Peace that lasts the your entire year!

…and this is how we change the world.