Opinion
By Jeff Childers, 11-28-24
On this historic day of giving thanks, we briefly consider the stolen legacy of Thanksgiving.
“It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.”
— Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
Inherent in the essential syntactical meaning of the verb “thank” is the requirement for a target who will receive the expressed gratitude. In grade-school English, the verb “to thank” requires a personal direct object. While it is possible to sarcastically thank your wire terrier for reducing the remote control to plastic shreds, or quite honestly thank a digital chart for inspiring a politician to tilt his head at just the right angle to avoid an assassin’s bullet, thanking inanimate objects is always an exercise in whimsy, a tongue-in-cheek metaphor played for a chuckle.
Today’s uniquely American holiday momentarily arrests our attention, compelling reflection not only on what we are thankful for but to whom we direct our thanks—a tradition born in the starving fields of Colonial America and cemented into place during the darkest days of the Civil War.
A Day of Thanksgiving is quintessentially American, a tradition reaching back through the mists of myth and history to the surviving Pilgrim settlers and their generous Indian friends. Who knows whether the cartoon version is even close to true; at this point, it doesn’t matter. Americans give thanks. It’s what we do. Having long been a deeply rooted American tradition, the Nation’s first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, proclaimed the official holiday in 1863 — not during a time of peace and prosperity, but arguably during the country’s darkest hour as the nation ripped itself apart in a savage civil war.
Born of starvation in the 1600’s, Thanksgiving came of age during the darkest night of a savage war to end slavery.
Lincoln signed Proclamation 106 in between the bloody battle of Gettysburg and the delivery of his historic Address about that battle. Pro-Thanksgiving activist Sarah Josepha Hale is often credited for giving Lincoln the idea, by sending the president a fiery letter urging immediate action.
In his short Proclamation of Thanksgiving, Lincoln began by gracefully noting the country’s continued expansion of freedom alongside the shrinking theater of war, although it would yet be another bloody year and a half before it was all over.
The Thanksgiving Proclamation was personally penned by Lincoln in his own unmatched prose. It’s nearly a miracle he took the time to do it. One struggles to comprehend the pressing emergencies and urgent crises that must also have been competing for Lincoln’s attention amidst as difficult a presidency as any man has yet endured.
Referring to the Nation’s many blessings hidden among its indescribable suffering, Lincoln was not confused about who should receive the Nation’s gratitude:
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, tranquillity, and union.
We can be grateful there was no “Freedom from Religion Foundation” in 1863, or there might be a lot less turkey and stuffing on the table. Anyway, read the whole thing, read it with your families. Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation is a part of your stolen legacy; reclaim it now. You can thank me later.
It is sadly unsurprising that wherever you find Lincoln’s Proclamation referenced online, you’ll find it whitewashed for modern secular eyes, stripping out reference to God and reimagining the prose as modern editors would have preferred Lincoln had written. But it is doubtful a sterile, woke Proclamation of Thanksgiving written by for modern eyes by White House staffers and tweaked by the Attorney General’s office could ever have enjoyed the transformational staying power of the original.
Academics and “experts” have become deeply confused about the necessary personal direct object who must exist to receive the gratitude expressed in the “Thanks” part of Thanksgiving.
🔥 We find ourselves similarly situated to our 1863 forbears, having recently emerged, not from a deadly civil war, but from a deadly pandemic, which itself was a kind of war against civilians. We 2024 Americans have even more for which to be thankful than did the 1863 Americans. We have all just witnessed the greatest political comeback and turnaround story in history, possibly trumping Churchill’s electrifying redemption story.
Consider how unimaginable a victory it is that nearly all the overfunded, horrible U.S. health agencies will soon be headed by people with personal stakes in fundamental transformation. We got both Trump as President and RFK as (probable) Secretary of HHS — something inconceivable even as a remote possibility three months ago.
We narrowly escaped new pandemics, lockdowns, another cheated election, and even nuclear war, receiving instead every blessing we had prayed for—and more. At this point, before we’ve thanked our Merciful God for the blessings we’ve already received, overwrought complaints about a particular nominee or who might’ve visited Mar-a-Lago last week should ring hollow, if not suspiciously subversive.
Beyond the purely political realm, we have also witnessed this year the slow but steady victory of a profound social counter-revolution, an awakening of the public’s mind to personal health, and the risks of overmedicating our children and our food supply. We’ve watched the return of courage; like the courage to call out why it is wrong to invite confused men into the women’s bathroom. We’ve seen signs of revival as global Christianity surged beyond projections in 2024.
As Lincoln correctly observed in October, 1863, no human agency could have devised or caused these momentous results. Their breathtaking scale and scope can only be the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
This Thanksgiving, let us pause, as Lincoln did, to mark the historic nature of the occasion and offer thanks not only for the blessings we can see and touch but for the unseen mercies that reward our patient endurance. May our gratitude today inspire hope, courage, and renewal in the days ahead.
May your day of giving thanks be enriched with irresistibly contagious laughter and good humor.
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. — 1 Thess. 5:16-18.
Thanksgiving, 2024.
Have a joyful and fulfilling Thanksgiving! I am thankful for all of you, and for your constant friendship throughout these perilous times. C&C shall return on Saturday morning with a terrific Weekend Edition roundup.
Don’t race off! We cannot do it alone. Consider joining up with C&C to help move the nation’s needle and change minds. I could sure use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope, if you can: ☕ Learn How to Get Involved 🦠
How to Donate to Coffee & Covid
Twitter: jchilders98.
Truth Social: jchilders98.
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
Telegram: t.me/coffeecovidnews
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com
© 2024 Jeff Childers
2135-B NW 40th Terrace, Gainesville, FL 32605
Unsubscribe
