Inform Your 'Faith'

   Thanksgiving as it was initially and originally observed was about more than a recreational feast.  In our day, inauspiciously, Thanksgiving has more or less devolved into just that.  Frankly, it would probably be more accurate to say it has taken on the form of a more hedonistic festival wherein folk engorge themselves beyond appetitive norms while inordinately entertaining themselves.  Within this construct participants aim to satisfy their basest and most animalistic cravings.

    If Thanksgiving hasn't taken on those characteristic's, where it is still observed anyway, it has been reduced to an anthropocentric praxis whereby God has been displaced and removed from memory.  Within this construct the resounding  egoist chant, "eat, drink and be merry" is only surpassed by another complimentary ditty" "meat is for the belly and the belly for the meats."  

   This was not how Thanksgiving originally took shape.   The early God fearing colonists regularly and customarily participated in days of "Thanksgiving". Interestingly though these were primarily days of prayer not of communal feasting. The national holiday of Thanksgiving finds its inception at Berkley, Virginia (1619) and Plymouth, Mass, (1621) where the pilgrims and Wamponoag convened to celebrate a successful harvest. Herein lies the reality and profound truth behind Thanksgiving in contradistinction to the contemporary moorings of a commercialized and consumerist sense and practice of titillating nostalgia. To be sure Thanksgiving {not turkeyday} originated as a day of prayer and thanksgiving to God. Not surprisingly the countries early trailblazers regularly recognized the One who preserved and sustained the warp and woof of their existence.  The pilgrim Edward Winslow expressed thanks by saying, "by the goodness of God we are so far from want." These humble Christian's maintained a posture of thankfulness and gratitude towards God the likes of which we have not seen in our day.   

    This is an extraordinary legacy considering the rising prevalence of the European Enlightenment and deism which had made inroads into the early colonies.  Exponents of these burgeoning perspectives and philosophies were very self-oriented and self-centered.  This milieu espoused a scientific and rationalistic modus vivendi that arrogantly elevated man to a place of primacy or better deified man in his world.  Man became the object of glory, adoration and attention. 

    Against this ideological backdrop the pilgrims consciously exerted unabashed effort and energy to maintain an attitude of dependence Godward expressed especially by way or organized and deliberate times of prayer and thanksgiving.  Prayer and thanksgiving was then and needs to be again the hallmark of our Thanksgiving {not Turkeyday}.

    Prayer continued to be the impetus behind an emerging United States. When undertaking the construction of the Capitol directions were given to create a room to facilitate prayer and meditation. In this "prayer room" a stained glass window portrays George Washington kneeling in prayer against the backdrop of an etched prayer which reads, "Preserve me, O God, for in Thee do put my trust" I believe this is from Psalm 16. Also etched are the Latin phrases, annuit coeptis, "God has favored our undertakings", and novus ordo seclorum, "A new order of the ages is born". Moreover the first Continental Congress convocation opened in prayer. Secular history documents the lives of the pilgrims and the founding fathers but fails to acknowledge their highly Christian cultus. Prayer and thanksgiving was an integral part of this countries formative era.

    Amid the many things I could and do give thanks to God for I am especially thankful for the quintessential expressions of gratitude and thanksgiving offered by the Pilgrims and the unparalleled commitment to prayer expressed by the founding fathers.
    May we reclaim this attitude of prayer this Thanksgiving, "giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Eph. 5:20). "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks is all circumstances..." (I Thess. 5:16-18) " Oh give thanks to the Lord for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever" (Psalm 118:1)

    If nothing else give thanks for so great a salvation as this that God has so graciously bestowed upon us in, through and by Jesus Christ.