Two Thanksgiving Day Proclamations

Three United States presidents have issued Thanksgiving Day proclamations. George Washington issued the first proclamation, as the new Republic was getting started in 1798. James Madison issued one in 1815. Abraham Lincoln issued two, one in 1862 and one in 1863. But it wasn't until the 1863 proclamation that Thanksgiving became an annual observance. 

The first proclamation by Washington and the second by Lincoln are posted at Dancing Priest today. 

Top photograph by Virginia Simionato via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Thursday Readings

 

Thankfulness is a Year-long Habit – Terry Whalin at The Writing Life.

 

“The New-England Boy’s Song about Thanksgiving Day ,” poem by Lydia Maria Child – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Thanksgiving Sonnet – Kelly Belmonte at Kelly’s Scribbles.

 

A Nation’s Gratitude: The First Presidential Thanksgiving – Jason Clark at This is the Day.

 

Thanksgiving: A Sonnet – Malcolm Guite.

 

The Year Washington (Almost) Canceled Thanksgiving – Michael Connolly at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Why We Celebrate Thanksgiving

We celebrate Thanksgiving Day because of Henry VIII, the Gunpowder Plot, the 1619 landing of 38 English colonists in Virginia (without slaves), the Pilgrims, the end of the American Revolution, the beginning of the American Republic, the Civil War, and the need to stimulate the economy in the late 1930s. And it might have been called Evacuation Day.  

Thanksgiving as we know it today in the United States evolved over a period of some 400 years. The idea of thanksgiving observances goes back to the Protestant Reformation in England under Henry VIII, consolidating a rather large number of thanksgiving holidays during the Roman Catholic period. Special days of Thanksgiving would be called for military victories and for deliverance from such events as the Gunpowder Plot of 1606.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Top photograph: Union soldiers celebrate the first national Thanksgiving Day in 1863.

Thanksgiving and judgment

After Psalm 122 

Odd to think of a city

with a dual nature, 

as if you were telling

two tales of one city.

It was first bound

together, this city,

bound together firmly,

with purpose and intent.

It is a city for giving

thanks, offering

thanksgiving, a destination

reached by a journey,

the place containing

the house, the object

of the journey to the city,

to offer the giving

of thankfulness. And

it is the place of thrones,

where the thrones are set,

the thrones of judgment,

the thrones of the king,

thrones bound together

in judgment, bound 

together in thanksgiving,

judgment and thanksgiving

bound as one.

 

Photograph by Sander Crombach via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Hands

After Psalm 95

Lifted: our hands wave,

His hand wraps the earth.

Lifted: our hands applaud,

His hands shape mountains.

Lifted: our hands clasp together,

His hands scoop the seas.

Lifted: our hands stretch upward,

His hands sculpt the land.

Lifted: our hands reach.

His hands touch.

Lifted: Our hands fold in prayer,

His hands wrap ours.

Photograph by Akira Hojo via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Cymbals, drums, hands

After Psalm 95

It is the noise we hear

first, a joyful noise,

punctuated with cymbals,

drums, hands, and other

instruments of worship,

orchestrated together as

an act, a declaration, 

a hymn of thanksgiving,

a hymn of profound praise,

as entrance is gained

to the presence, an instance

of celebration, an eruption

of celebration, unlike

what has been known, like

what will be known

forevermore.

Photograph by Anthony Delanoix via Unsplash. Used with permission.

The first refugees

I believed the worst was behind,

the voyage over, cramped and tossing,

the first winter, harsh, finishing

the house as the snow began to fall,

and a spring, glorious, the explosion

of trees into green, into life. We prayed,

we joined in service, we planted what

seeds we had with us and what seeds

the people beyond the trees gave us.

Then came the fever. I dug your grave

as the children watched, our children

who alone kept me moving, caused me

to arise in the morning, he has

your dimple, she has your eyes.

The harvest was good, not overflowing

but good, we would not hunger this winter,

and the leaders and the women thought it

right to mark the harvest, and we prepared

our game, our squash, our maize,

fruits from the forest, and the people

beyond the trees came through the woods,

and watched for a time, finally walking

into our midst, with more game, and fish,

and berries we had not seen before,

creating an abundance. And we spoke

of God’s provision in this beautiful, hostile

land, and we prayed, and ate, and shared

all we had.

But I still think of you, your dimple

and your eyes, and measure the pain

in the thanksgiving.

Photograph: recreation of Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts.

Giving Thanks This Day

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good. His love endures forever. Psalm136:1

I live in a country where I am free to worship, free to speak, free to vote, free to pursue my dreams.

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good. His love endures forever. Psalm 107:1

I have a family through whom I have been immeasurably blessed: my wife Janet, my son Travis, my son Andrew, my daughter-in-law Stephanie, my daughter-in-law –to-be Jessica, my grandsons Cameron and Caden, and my grandson-to-be.

I have an extended family through whom I have been immeasurably blessed: my two brothers, my sister, their families, aunts, uncles, cousins and family by marriage.

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good. His love endures forever. 1 Chronicles 16:34

I have a faithful God, who has always met the needs of my family and always met my needs, even when I didn’t understand what those needs were.

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good. His love endures forever. Psalm 118:1

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on my country, for we are sinners.

Photograph by George Hodan via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

My One Day

It is my one day, my one day

is today to be lifted from the stack

where I’m carefully kept, paper

napkins between us so we don’t

scrape or chip or abrade. I am

lifted and separated, carefully

washed, hands in yellow gloves

feeling my heaviness, for I am not

ordinary glass but crystal imagined

and blown and shaped and cut. I sit

on the table, next to a cutting board,

and I listen to the peeling and paring

and cutting and dicing and halving as

into my interior is emptied apple

oranges tangerines grapes (red and

green) pecans maraschino cherries

and whatever else is deemed worthy

and appropriate. I am covered

in clear plastic and placed in a box

that is cold, not icy but sufficiently,

until I am removed and carefully

carried to the table, where my contents

are spooned out and whipped cream

topped to murmurs of “ambrosia.”

It is my one day.

Over at Tweetspeak Poetry, we’ve been discussing Spin: Taking Your Creativity to the Nth Degree by Claire Burge. One of the suggestions Burge makes in this book is to take an everyday object and personify it in an art form of your choice. To see the discussion and what suggestions and questions others tackled, please visit Tweetspeak Poetry.

And may you enjoy your own ambrosia this Thanksgiving Day.

Photograph by Maliz Ong via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Thanksgiving Blessings 2012

                                                             Cameron Young

                                                               Caden Young

Photographs by Stephanie Young. Used with permission from Cameron and Caden.

Thanksgiving

It’s a new year, and instead of starting with resolutions (which I’m always bad about keeping anyway), I’d like to begin with thanksgiving for all of the things I experienced, all of the things I learned, and all of the blessings I received in 2011.

I learned about disability. A bulging disc pressed a nerve and turned my life upside down. I learned dependence upon others. I learned to slow down because I had to slow down. An activity that had been a big part of my life for more than six years – biking – suddenly wasn’t. I learned a little about patience.

I learned about writing. I wrote more than I ever have before. If what I write on this blog is representative of my writing overall, and it is, then I wrote more poetry than I ever have before.

I read more than I have in recent years (possibly because I wasn’t biking). My reading was almost exactly, if unintentionally, in “thirds” – one third fiction, one third poetry and one third non-fiction. That’s a shift from previous years – more poetry. And of the non-fiction I read, a significant chunk was about writing fiction and poetry.

I learned that I like ebook readers (Kindle) and tablets (iPad).

I learned that I still cry at movies. And it’s still embarrassing. (I even cried at “The Muppet Movie.”)

I learned about publishing a book. I’m still rather amazed that it happened. It’s a lot of work. Writers generally don’t like to hear that they have to promote their work, and learn marketing and publicity. Writers want to write. But these days, writers have to promote and publicize, too.

I learned publishing also means trust. I trusted my editor, my publisher, my cover photographer and my cover designer. Trusting them was the smartest thing I did in publishing Dancing Priest.

And publishing means learning how readers respond. You hope people will like what you write, or be inspired or provoked or encouraged or challenged or something. But I’m still surprised. I’ve read blog posts and reviews and emails about my book, and I don’t feel gratified; I feel humbled. I’ve been brought to tears a few times.

I learned how much I don’t know. The older I get, the more I realize how much I don’t know.  I was a lot smarter in my 20s and 30s, or at least I knew a lot more then than I do now.

I learned about family. My oldest discovered he was to become a father again, which meant I discovered I was going to be a grandfather again. My youngest moved from Kansas City to Florida, and I learned, or relearned, that distance involves the pain of separation. I learned that my wife is a rather extraordinary project manager, with the remodeling of our kitchen, laundry and bathrooms and new flooring everywhere. I learned that my grandson loves to dance, and that he creates music in my heart.

I learned that my grandson and I are a lot alike – especially in how we’re learning about the world, learning with a child’s heart. I hope that’s something he and I never lose.

I learned I have much to be thankful for.

Photograph: Candles in Church by Vera Kratochvil via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Mogen David Wine and Mince-Meat Pie

For years when I was growing up in New Orleans, part of the wonder of Thanksgiving and Christmas were the family dinners – and they were always held at our house. The simple reason for that was that we had a family room that had started out life as a carport and porch – and once it had been enclosed, it became the largest room in my mother’s extended family, the one that could accommodate a sit-down dinner for 25 or more people.

My parents would rent or borrow tables, arrange them to look like one long table (covered with tablecloths), with usually the table in the adjacent kitchen used for the kids. My parents made the entire meal – everything from the turkey (Thanksgiving) or ham (Christmas) to the desserts. And the holiday meals were the two times of the year my mother used her good china and silver.

My father made the turkey and the oyster dressing, which everyone in the family except me ate with great gusto. I refused to eat it, likely because I was never a major fan of oysters (a felony in New Orleans). My mother would make mashed potatoes and other vegetables and the pies, which were always pecan pie and mince-meat pie. The mince-meat pie was for me – it was and still is my favorite. I would watch to make sure none of the relatives took too much of the mince-meat pie, especially the last piece.

The gatherings were loud and noisy. Three of my mother’s four sisters came with their husbands and children; the fourth sister had six children and generally went to the in-laws for holiday meals. My grandmother would arrive with one of the aunts. There was lots of hugging and kissing and usually a considerable amount of alcohol consumption. Much of the alcohol was left over from holiday parties at my father’s office.

The number of children was relatively small for the gathering – only six of us. Two were too old to “play: with the rest and one (my little brother) was too young, so it was left to me and two cousins to invent things to do. Usually that meant disappearing for a time and going to the woods across the street from my house. My cousins lived in the city and the closest thing to woods was City Park or Audubon Park, which were (and are) wonderful spaces but not quite the same thing as woods with trails, vine swings and the likelihood of running into Mr. Snake, which was both an enticement and a fear.

When it was time to eat, usually around 2 p.m., we would gather for a prayer (which I seem to remember my father always praying) and then consume mountains of food. The adults always had wine with dinner, some vintage of kosher Mogen David wine. I don’t know why it was always Mogen David, but I think it had to do with the brand being a step up from the more common ones but still cheap enough to buy for a lot of people who enjoyed wine with their dinner.

After the meal, some of the adults would look for a bed to sleep off too much Mogen David. The conversation would go on as the clean-up got underway. The kids would usually go nosing around for another piece of pie (and me to check on the status of the mince meat) and then we’d be outside playing games, running around, doing normal kid stuff.

These holiday celebrations continued well into my teen years. At some point they stopped; my parents may have tired of the hosting duties.

But they were special, special because of family, a large family, coming together to celebrate and doing the things large families liked to do. My wife remembers similar family celebrations at her grandparents’ home in Shreveport – similar except for the Mogen David. You didn’t have wine at holiday dinners in Shreveport. Consequently, things were more subdued than in New Orleans.

Today I look around at my own family at holiday meals in St. Louis. We are definitely a smaller and quieter crowd, and the wine is better. Yet I’m still reminded of Aunt Tean and Uncle Chester, Aunt Toot and Uncle John, Aunt Gee and Uncle Sonny, my grandmother Lillian, and June and Lee and Jimmy and Donna and Susie and Alvin and sometimes someone’s in-laws and out-of-town visitors, and the laughter and the jokes and running in the woods.

And that mince-meat pie sitting with the other pies on the card table in the corner.

Over at Faith Barista, Bonnie Gray is celebrating the month of December with a blog carnival on “Unwrapping Jesus.” Family memories are one way I do that unwrapping. To see other posts, please visit Faith Barista.

Thanksgiving: Two Sons

We have two sons, born almost eight years apart. There’s a reason for that. The first one was such a tornado that we didn’t think we could manage another – and stay sane. But we did manage the two.

Travis is now 31; Andrew is almost 24. They are about as different as you could find. The one thing they have in common is that both wanted to go to colleges far, far away, and both ended up at the University of Missouri. The university did manage to survive.

Travis walked at nine months, for exactly one day. Then he ran and didn’t stop. From early on, he was a sports fan. Any sport. Baseball became his favorite, but he’d watch anything with a ball. When he was five, we found him awake one Saturday morning watching TV – a golf game.

He was (and still is) a natural in front on the camera. Mugged for it, in fact – he loved having his picture taken.

Andrew also loves sports, but he’s more selective about it. He loved playing basketball, and he did play in high school, but he didn’t get his growth spurt until after he graduated. He was a quiet and extraordinarily shy child.

He would see a camera and become hysterical. We have countless pictures of Andrew crying at having his picture taken. We have countless pictures of the two of them together – Travis mugging for the camera and Andrew crying or hiding his face. Same gene pool; go figure.

Travis is our salesman. Put him in a roomful of strangers and he’ll know most of them within 30 minutes. He is large and in charge, and you always knew when Travis was around. In the scholarship department, well, let’s say Travis was smart about the things he wanted to be smart about. We read to him as a child, oh, did we read to him; both of his parents loved to read and we just assumed he would love books, too. Winnie the Pooh. Chronicles of Narnia. Fairy tales. His idea of a good book: listening to the audio tapes of Superman, Batman and Justice League of America stories. Preferably with others around – being solitary was not his idea of a good time.

Andrew loved having friends, but he went in for more solitary pursuits as well. He rode the Harry Potter book craze. He took up the clarinet – a surprise, since no one else in the immediate family played an instrument. He even played for the school band through high school. In his sophomore year, he came home from school and totally shocked us with the announcement that he’d like to go to Australia for three weeks with the People to People program – three weeks, thousands of miles away, with kids he had never met before. And he followed through on what he had to do and went. He went snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef, slept outside on a ranch to wake up to frost covering his face (it was winter there), lived for three days with a family in Sydney and went to school with one of their kids. He came back a different, far more confident young man, and loved the program so much he went to Europe the following summer.

Travis started college as a business major. It didn’t take long for him to find the closest thing the university offered to sports marketing – which turned out to be in the College of Agriculture. After he graduated, he worked in sports marketing for a semi-pro baseball team in the St. Louis area. Then he got wind of an opportunity with an expansion league in the West, and packed off to Phoenix. The league went bust (the investor owners wanted profit in the first year and that wasn’t likely to happen) but Travis looked around and landed on his feet, going to work for a Marriott franchise. He met and married Stephanie, but he was not meant for staying in Phoenix long-term. His St. Louis roots called him back home; he’s a St. Louis kid if there ever was one. He’s got a manager position with the biggest Hilton in St. Louis (the Ballpark Hilton, right near Busch Stadium; what a surprise for our sports child) but was eventually assigned to turn around another property in suburban St. Louis. Which he has.

Andrew started the University of Missouri in the College of Business and stayed there, getting a degree in finance. After graduation, he went to work for Farmers Insurance in Kansas City in one of their two U.S. claims offices. One brutal winter later, he decided he was more interested in a warmer climate, and is now working for Farmers in Florida. He likes the work, which requires a lot of initiative and being a self-starter. I think back to that little boy hiding his face from the camera, and am amazed.

They are eight years apart, and very different in so many ways. And yet they have remained close. As a child Andrew adored his older brother; Travis was always thrilled to have another kid in the family. When Travis got married, Andrew was his best man. Travis’s first child is named Cameron Andrew (I say first child because the second is due in May).

Eight years difference in age. They live 1,500 miles apart. Different outlooks, personalities, lines of work. But they’re still wonderfully close.

I’m proud of both of them. We worried over both; we still do. But they turned into pretty cool adults. Last night, Andrew braved the Thanksgiving airport madness and flew home. We have them both together, along with Stephanie and my grandson.

Two fine young men. Two brothers. Two sons I give thanks to God for giving us.

This post is part of Bonnie Gray’s blog carnival on faith over at Faith Barista. Today is all about Thanksgiving; to see more posts, head on over there.

Thanksgiving Post Featured at Jennifer's Place

Jennifer Dukes-Lee has featured my Thanksgiving post from last year as a report at her blog, Getting Down with Jesus. Take a look -- and remember to be thankful to farmers every day, not just Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving: Of Such Is Greatness

My first thought is of roads.

Quiet roads. Roads busy with traffic only in the spring and fall, when planters and combines and tractors are being moved from shed or barn to field, from farm to neighbor’s farm. At other times, empty roads, a little busier on Sundays when families head to church or on weekdays when the school buses are picking up children, but quiet roads nonetheless.

The roads meander between fields of corn and soybeans, wheat and sorghum, dairy farms and a few orchards here and there. Roads connecting farms and towns, neighbors and friends, work and rest. Pickup trucks carrying seed and supplies travel these roads, as do trucks hauling corn and beans from the harvest.

When we think of what ties countries together, we think of information networks, interstate highways, airline schedules, train tracks. And yet, these roads that have names like “A” and “D” or FM 27 are our geographic arteries and blood vessels. Without them, and the work they support, all the rest wouldn’t matter. Silicon Valley exists because your average farmer In Iowa or Ontario produces enough food each year to feed 150 people. People like me and my family.

This fall, I spent a few days at Laity Lodge in Texas with a group of writers who are part of the staff for The High Calling. One of them lives off one of those roads in Iowa. The other lives off one of those roads in Ontario. They’re both writers, mothers and farm wives. And neither of them would bristle at being called a farm wife because they and their families know exactly what that means.

Jennifer Dukes-Lee and her husband Scott farm in Iowa. Jennifer was the political correspondent for the Des Moines Register before she and Scott moved to his family’s farm to take his dad’s place. I could tell you all kinds of things about the Lee family – I’ve been following Jennifer’s blog for more than year – but you should visit her there first. And you will learn a lot about farming, and family, and values, and faith, and what’s important in this life.

About a year ago, Jennifer was writing with a catch in her throat; I could sense it and feel it with every blog post. It was Scott’s first harvest to manage on his own, and it was one of the most difficult harvests in recent memory. Planting had been late because of wet weather; and harvest was equally late. Scott was often in the fields at midnight and later, and he finished and shut the barn door on his equipment just as the snow started. A lot of farmers weren’t so fortunate, and were harvesting in the snow. But I could read the tension in what Jennifer was writing and see it in the photographs she posted.

Ann Voskamp and her husband David farm in Ontario. At Ann’s blog, you can learn about family, and faith, and tradition, and values, and the beauty of day-to-day living. Both Voskamps come from farming families, and family is an idea that will surface again and again in her writings.

This spring, the time had come for her oldest son to climb up into the cab and learn how to till and plant fields. She captured his nervousness exactly, because it mirrored her own. And one picture told the story: her father-in-law, her son’s grandfather, sitting in the cab with her son, his hand on the young man’s shoulder, her husband holding on to the side as he listened. Teaching, passing on knowledge, the embracing of a tradition.

All of what happens on that farm in Iowa, and all of what happens on that farm in Ontario, is the stuff of what makes countries like the United States and Canada great and prosperous nations, even when economic times are bad.

And all of that greatness comes flowing down those roads, eventually finding its way to each of us.

My thanks to Jennifer and Scott, and my thanks to Ann and David.


Photograph: In the Country by Bobby Mikul, via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Harvest Thanks

He stands, watches;
Studies the stubble
In the field,
Stubble to keep
Soil intact,
Protecting;
Something like the
Stubble on his face.
She stands by his side.

It wasn’t the life
She thought she’d want then.
It was now, though.

It’s done, he says,
By the barest, glancing
At dark clouds
Threatening cold white.
Thought we might
Have to turn
The combine into
A snow plow.
But we made it.

She touches his
Relief, his gratitude,
His faith.

She links her arm through his,
Leaning into his side.
We did, she says,
We made it.
God is faithful,
Always.
She touches the gray
Beginning to drift
From his temple.

The first flakes of icy white
Kiss their faces,
Lightly.

A Farmer in Northwest Iowa

He’s one of three million Americans.

This particular one lives and works in northwest Iowa. He does what his father did before him – he farms the land, to grow food, provide for the family, and be a vital part of the community where he grew up. Farming is what he knows and what he believes in.

He fights the weather, as much as anyone can fight it. He certainly talks about it a lot, because the weather matters. A lot. A wet spring means he’s planting late. Not enough rain in the summer threatens his crop. A wet fall means he’s harvesting late, and he hopes it’s not too late because the rain could turn to snow. If it’s been as wet a fall as this year has seen, when most Americans are sitting down with family and friends for Thanksgiving, there’s a good chance he’s going to be in that combine, trying to finish the harvest. And giving thanks he has some dry days to do it.

So people like the rest of us can eat.

Some harvest nights, he’s got the headlights on the combine, and he’s out there, working. No one except his wife knows, because he can’t quite slip into bed quietly enough not to wake her at 3 a.m. to get a couple of hours of desperately needed sleep. She hears him; she knows what he does for their family. She doesn’t say anything; she puts her hand on his shoulder so he’ll know. And he does.

He doesn’t talk about it, either. He just does it.

He’s heard what some say. You don’t take care of the land. You’re industrial agriculture. Flyover country. All the demeaning and patronizing words that come when people learn farming from whomever the latest college guru happens to be.

He shrugs. He has work to do.

He’s a businessman because he has to be. He has to track commodity prices. Seed and fuel prices. Fertilizer. Utilities. Loan rates, assuming credit’s available. Land values. And he’s learned how to use technology. GPS. The net. Mobile computing. Because some things he has to find out like now, while he's on the tractor or in the combine or he's stopped at the feed supply and he hears something he has to check on.

He’s smart, because farming takes brains, and an intellect, and common sense, and experience, and ongoing education from the state university and the extension agent and the seed dealer and anyone else who has knowledge to impart. He listens and ponders. That’s on top of his degree in agriculture or business or marketing. And, yes, he reads the farm publications but that’s the Wall Street Journal and Business Week that he’s reading at breakfast. And he's reading them online.

He worries, too, about a lot of things. If the children will farm after him. If commodity prices will stay high enough to turn a profit. About the cost of his inputs. About whether he should make an offer on that land that became available across the road. And the weather.

He’s a man of faith. He has to have faith to be in farming. Faith in God. Faith in something besides himself. Because he knows it takes more than himself to be successful. Like when his father-in-law spends a week with him to help with the harvest. When his brothers share equipment. And when he does the same thing for them.

So this Thanksgiving, give thanks for him. And the three million men and women just like him.