Thanksgiving out of our Civil War

In my suburban upbringing, Thanksgiving was one of the most wholesome days of the year.  It was the rare day when the family was all together without any work to get done, other than to cook a fantastic meal.  My father would be up early preparing the big turkey, the smells of garlic and thyme and butter filling the bright kitchen.  And my mother would work her culinary magic whipping potatoes, adding bacon to green beans, and making homemade crust for several pumpkin pies.  We would eat at the dining table with a view of the Temecula countryside out the bay window, and we would stop before the meal and everyone would say something they were thankful for.  My mother would usually give thanks for her family, and my dad, a longtime navy man, would express thanks for the soldiers overseas that were making difficult sacrifices for our safety.  It was the one time per year, then, that I would hear my father offer a prayer.  Then it was on to football, either watched, or organized with a group of friends, and my mom scouring the newspapers for Black Friday shopping deals.  The whole day had a sense of balance, rest, and appropriate, reflective gratitude for a comfortable existence that was often easy to take for granted.  It was easily one of my favorite family days of the year.

But the origins of Thanksgiving are quite different.  Rather than a season of affluence and comfort finding its consummation in thanks, the origins of Thanksgiving are even more striking, expressing gratitude, not in times of prosperity, but rather in times of vulnerability and need.

We are probably familiar with the conception of the thanksgiving feast linked to the historic gathering of English pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indians in the fall of 1621.  The thanksgiving was powerfully justified, for the harsh winter before had taken the lives of half the colonists, and without the agricultural support of the Wampanoag, the rest of the pilgrims would likely not have survived.  The first thanksgiving included the sentiment of ‘God thank you that we are alive, when so many of us have already died.’

And when thanksgiving was made a national holiday, it similarly had this intense depth.  The writer and editor of the nation’s largest women’s magazine of the mid-19th century, Sarah Josepha Hale, began writing editorials and personal letters to five U.S. presidents for 17 years from 1846-1863 promoting a national holiday of thanks.  Her last letter was to President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, and finally found its mark.  In the middle of the host horrific war on American soil, instead of declaring a day of mourning or fasting, Lincoln proclaimed a national day of Thanksgiving on Thursday, November 26th, 1863.  The statement from his administration, at the close of the bloodiest year in American history that saw approximately 200,000 casualties, proclaimed:

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 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… peace has been preserved with all (other) nations, the order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict…  No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things.  They are the gracious gifts of the Highest God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

The day was then encouraged to be a day of worship, thanks, and prayers for healing for the nation.  Thanksgiving is appropriate in times of peace and comfort, and it shines even brighter in the face of starvation or war.  Truly, there is no situation in which we cannot find something good to give thanks for.

Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you      (1 Thes 5:18).

Together in the Journey,
Fr. Cam Lemons