In looking at my archives I think I tried to post these thoughts a few years ago, but I believe I made a mistake in editing them and they didn't post. Let me try again today, Thanksgiving Day 2019.
I am an unabashed fan of Norman Rockwell, iconic
American artist of the 1940’s-60’s. It
doesn’t matter whether you are 21 or 101, I am sure you have seen his famous Saturday Evening Post cover of a family
sitting down to enjoy their turkey dinner. Although I don’t know for sure, I
feel strongly that the artist implied that a sincere prayer of gratitude was
offered over that meal as an expression of this family’s gratitude for the
blessings of family, freedom, bounty, opportunity and prosperity.
I am afraid, though, that in many of our homes
Thanksgiving may not be celebrated any longer as a significant religious
holiday. I think many of our observances
have become celebrations of consumption rather than spiritual feast of of love, gratitude, and sharing.
It hasn’t always been so.
The first community Thanksgiving in what to become America was
celebrated by our Pilgrim forefathers at Plymouth in the fall of 1621. Theirs was a celebration of gratitude to a
Heavenly Father who had sent a bounteous harvest to that beleaguered little
colony. Almost half of Plymouth’s
original 101 settlers had died during the severe winter of 1620-21, just 11
months before. Most of the Plymouth
Pilgrims had been merchants and artisans in England, and they were woefully
unprepared to live off the land.
Fortunately, a bounteous harvest came in that fall and the native
Americans shared with them what they had and a grateful and relieved Governor
Bradford proclaimed a three-day period of fasting and then celebration.
That celebration was at least partially borrowed from
the admonition found in the Biblical book of Leviticus that provides: “When
ye have gathered in the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto the Lord.
. . and ye shall rejoice before the Lord, your God (Lev. 23:39-40).
That first feast and many subsequent celebrations of
Thanksgiving focused upon man’s relationship with God, our Heavenly Father. Our
subsequent forefathers understood well their dependence on God. President George Washington, in his proclamation establishing
the 1789 Thanksgiving celebration, said in part,
“Whereas, it is the duty of all nations to
acknowledge the providence of almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful
for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor. . . that we
may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks for his
kind care and protection of the people of this country.”
In a book of scripture sacred to me, The
Book of Mormon clearly taught the sacred origin of Thanksgiving when he
proclaimed unto his people:
“O how
you ought to thank your heavenly King! I
say unto you, my brethren, that if you could render all the thanks and praise
which your whole soul has power to possess, that that God who has created you,
and has kept and preserved you and has caused that ye should rejoice, and has
granted that ye should live in peace one with another. . . . I say, if ye
should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable
servants.” (Mosiah 2:19-21)
Regrettably, with prosperity came false and humanistic
notions. People who once rendered
thankful praise to their God soon came to praise their own industry and
intellect and forgot their God. In like
manner even Christmas and Easter have been grossly distorted.
Remember always that it wasn’t our intellect or our
acquired abilities that enabled us to be here today. May an attitude of thankfulness to God always
be with us, and not just in the time it takes to listen to a blessing on this
lovely Thanksgiving feast we remember in Norman Rockwell's painting or on our own table would be my hope for people of all nations.
