Bramblings: A Thanksgiving proclamation

By BECKY NELSON
By Becky Nelson

Thanksgiving images of turkeys and pies and food by the ton cover every supermarket flyer and pepper social media posts. Outrage about the “fake” history of the “first” Thanksgiving also abound, and our perceptions of the holiday are colored by popular contemporary judgements and biases. Instead of paying the price for our forefathers’ decisions to try to escape uncomfortable European economic, political and religious climate by crying foul for celebrating a holiday worth celebrating, I think we should shed the ancestral guilt and build new reasons for thanks.

Sarah Josepha Hale of Newport lobbied President Lincoln to declare Thanksgiving – at that time celebrated mostly by states in the Northeast — as a national holiday. In the midst of civil war, he signed the proclamation for a “national day of thanksgiving and praise” to be held the last Thursday of each November. Though some may take umbrage to his words of a century-and-a-half ago invoking God as deserving of thanks, the sentiments should be heeded in our time of international, national, regional and even local struggles.

Civility seems to be strained whether it is in our national capitol or our town, city, county and state offices, and we need to listen to Lincoln’s words imploring the union of the nation. Things are not that different today in some ways, and so, so, so much better in others:

“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 unequalled 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 defence (sic.), have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has 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 one 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.”

Let us heed this proclamation in its sincere intent this coming Thursday. My wish for all of you this Thanksgiving is not overflowing plates of squash, potatoes and turkey, but rather the “full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union” for you and your families, friends and neighbors, our towns and cities, our counties and states and especially our nation.

Becky is co-owner of Beaver Pond Farm in Newport, New Hampshire. [email protected].