As we enter this last week of November, the one designated for the beloved national holiday of Thanksgiving, our thoughts focus with a greater sense of urgency on the need to give thanks. Presidential Proclamations call the nation to gather at home and hearth and give thanks to God for the blessings in our lives. Pastors and priests in pulpits speak to parishioners in pews about the true source of our gifts, God. Teachers and therapists tell us that gratitude is an attitude that is essential for happiness. And when President Franklin Roosevelt first considered establishing a set date for the holiday, the last Thursday in November, recognized and observed by the entire nation, a primary concern raised by the nation’s retailers was the number of shopping days before Christmas. So, we count our blessings and rejoice in the nation’s abundance and give thanks to the One who provides them.
This observance, however, always takes place at a time marked by significant challenges, or so it seems. President Lincoln issued his gold standard proclamation of 1863, calling the nation to give thanks while recognizing the brutal realities of the Civil War.
The year that is drawing toward 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 unequaled magnitude and severity, …
… 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.
Lincoln’s call to the nation was not just to a national expression of gratitude “with one heart and one voice,” but to a universal and humble accountability, to a humble penitence for “our national perverseness and disobedience,” both of which have caused such suffering among the vulnerable.
We too live in such a time, one of extraordinary abundance and shameful perverseness. Yet, I am reminded of a quote by President Roosevelt:
The test of our progress (I would use national character) is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have little. Real national growth is measured not by the wealth of the rich, but by the support offered to the vulnerable.
Blogger David J. Brown has written:
These are difficult, even soul-crushing times for many of our fellow travelers. Dreams are dashed on the rocks of hatred, greed, and revenge. Belief in our country and in our fellow citizens has been put to the test. It has always been thus. There have always been difficult times.
These are, sadly, potentially soul-crushing times. I think you remember that last month I offered suggestions on “How to Live in an Era of Dark Passions.” In addition, my last blog post shared thoughts on the “Culture of Cruelty” in which we are living and offered thoughts on how best, in the words of Lincoln, not to fail to penetrate and soften even the heart. The current administration continues to terrorize the nation with its heartless and arguably unlawful and certainly immoral treatment of immigrants while it sends troops to occupy cities to silence political adversaries. The salacious Epstein Files are not only a vulgar stain on the reputations of our nation’s political class, but they reveal an epic fail in the morality of our country’s wealthy and powerful. Trump and his allies have cut USAID programs across the globe and here at home. They are forcing millions of SNAP recipients to wait for necessary benefits. Millions might lose their health care by year’s end, and some of its most prized professionals, such as nurses, might lose their ‘professional’ status and their eligibility for loans to secure and advance their training and skill levels. Yet another piece of evidence of cruelty!
Ironically, on the sixty-second anniversary of the assassination of her grandfather, President John F. Kennedy, Tatiana Schlossberg revealed in a November 22 essay for The New Yorker that she had been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. She described her diagnosis as “terminal.” The title of the letter is “A Battle with My Blood.” I have read the essay numerous times, never without shedding tears, this is because, like many of my generation, I have always felt connected to the tragic Kennedy personal and political narrative. Schlossberg especially touched my heart when she wrote:
My parents and my brother and sister, too, have been raising my children and sitting in my various hospital rooms almost every day for the last year and a half. They have held my hand unflinchingly while I have suffered, trying not to show their pain and sadness in order to protect me from it. This has been a great gift, even though I feel their pain every day. For my whole life, I have tried to be good, to be a good student and a good sister and a good daughter, and to protect my mother and never make her upset or angry. Now I have added a new tragedy to her life, to our family’s life, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
Not only did her family give her ‘a great gift’ of care and human touch, laughter, and love, but so did others. She wrote these very poignant words about an obstetrician, friends, known and unknown to her, and most important of all, the nurses.
There were indignities and humiliations. I had a postpartum hemorrhage and almost bled to death, before being saved by my obstetrician. (She had already saved my life once, by noticing my blood count and giving me the chance to be cured. This time felt like overkill.) Little things made it easier, or somehow made it feel like everything was going to be fine. My son came to visit almost every day. When friends heard that I liked Spindrift seltzer, they sent cases of it; they also sent pajamas and watercolor kits and good gossip. People made paintings and drawings to decorate my walls. They dropped off food at my parents’ apartment, where George and the kids had moved. The nurses brought me warm blankets and let me sit on the floor of the skyway with my son, even though I wasn’t supposed to leave my room. They ate up the gossip that I gathered; they looked the other way when they saw that I had a contraband teakettle and toaster. They told me about their kids and their dating lives and their first trips to Europe. I have never encountered a group of people who are more competent, more full of grace and empathy, more willing to serve others than nurses. Nurses should take over.
Clearly, a nurse should govern from the Oval Office!
During these proverbial ‘best of times and worst of times,’ as the national celebration of Thanksgiving approaches, we would do well both to count our blessings and confront with humble penitence the reality of our national perverseness and disobedience. I understand that the word of the day, at least for the White House’s self-serving communications office, is ‘affordability.’ I would much prefer that the word be ‘accountability,’ holding us to account for ourselves and the betrayals of our faith and our shameless mistreatment of others.
The Apostle Paul wrote to the congregation in Thessalonica and offered what the Bible calls his Final Instructions. These instructions read:
12 But we appeal to you, brothers and sisters, to respect those who labor among you and have charge of you in the Lord and admonish you; 13 esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. 14 And we urge you, brothers and sisters, to admonish the idlers, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with all of them. 15 See that none of you repays evil for evil but always seeks to do good to one another and to all. 16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. (1 Thessalonians 5:12-18, NRSVU)
Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. This advice, if taken seriously and followed, will surely, no matter what the circumstance, make for a happy Thanksgiving.