Happy Thanksgiving

The year is drawing to its close. It seems that that the days are passing by fast and furious. But let us take the time to think back on the year and the Blessings we have experienced. Maybe perhaps a little historical perspective will help you understand and appreciate this THANKSGIVING just a little better.

We all have our own memories of THANKSGIVING DAY. I am sure they weren’t all “over the hills and through the woods to Grandmother’s House” but I am sure that they were special times with family, friends and good food.  However, do we remember to be thankful and even prayerful this day as well?

The FIRST THANKSGIVINGS were truly days of prayer and thanksgiving held by those who came to the shores of America.  Menendez de Aviles invited Timucuan Indians to join him for the first communal meal between Europeans and natives at St Augustine in Florida in 1565. At Jamestown, Va (1607) it was declared that “ the day of the Colonist’s safe arrival, “ … shall be a yearly … day of thanksgiving.” Those first landing at what becomes Berkley Plantation, Va in 1619 also held a feast of thanksgiving. Finally, the day we hold in tradition was when the Massachusetts Bay Colony at Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620 held a feast with the Powhatan Indians in “gratefulness for deliverance, freedoms, prosperity and bounty.” The pilgrims feasted in thanksgiving for a bountiful harvest during their second season in America which meant their survival.

So, on this Thanksgiving Day while enjoying football, parades and shopping, don’t forget to remember what the day is really about.  In all the day’s preparations and activities – let’s not forget to be thankful for our own bounty.

The Thanksgiving holiday we continue to celebrate in November was suggested by George Washington in 1789, established by Abraham Lincoln by an Act of Congress during the Civil War and made into law by Congress in 1941.

On October 3, 1789 President George Washington issued his “Thanksgiving Proclamation” at the request of Congress, declaring a special day of public Thanksgiving and prayer to be held on the 26th Day of November 1789. The proclamation reads in part that the day shall be “ … observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:”It also reads that the People of these United States should devote themselves to being thankful,“ for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.” Finally, the Proclamation states that we should then “unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally, to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.”

On October 3, 1863 President Abraham Lincoln, after some of the worst battles of the Civil War then raging for over 2 years and a month or so before delivering his now famous Gettysburg Address, with the urging of Sarah Josepha Hale, a magazine editor, proclaimed a National Day of Thanksgiving to be held in perpetuity on the same day in all the United States.  Thus the last Thursday of November was set aside as a “Day of Thanksgiving and Praise.”  After the war it was eventually adopted by all the states.

In this Proclamation President Lincoln states that, “…It has seemed to me fit and proper that they [the bountiful blessings despite being in the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity] 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.” He further states that, “… 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.”

So, with all this in mind, HAPPY THANKSGIVING to each and every one of you.  May you and your families enjoy the day with family, friends, and good food.

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Volume 7, Issue 11, Posted 11:41 AM, 11.25.2015