Thanksgiving has become synonymous with a huge and bountiful feast — a symbol of a good harvest or, in today’s mostly non-agrarian United States, of a robust and prosperous economy.
That is entirely appropriate, so long as the symbol is combined with a good dose of gratitude toward others and toward God.
Genuine gratitude may be broken into three parts. As the Harvard Health Publishing website puts it, people can “apply it to the past (retrieving positive memories and being thankful for elements of childhood or past blessings), the present (not taking good fortune for granted as it comes), and the future (maintaining a hopeful and optimistic attitude).”
The American spirit has cultivated each of these throughout its history, but especially the habit of being hopeful and optimistic about the future, with a nod to a higher power. That has been especially true and poignant during some of the nation’s darkest days.
Abraham Lincoln
It’s hard not to be moved by the Thanksgiving proclamation Abraham Lincoln offered to the nation in the summer of 1863, amid the carnage and uncertainty of a civil war.
Noting recent military victories, Lincoln said, “But these victories have been accorded not without sacrifices of life, limb, health and liberty, incurred by brave, loyal and patriotic citizens. Domestic affliction in every part of the country follows in the train of these fearful bereavements.
“It is meet and right to recognize and confess the presence of the Almighty Father and the power of His hand equally in these triumphs and in these sorrows.”
He set aside Aug. 6 as a day “for national thanksgiving, praise, and prayer” and invited “the people of the United States to assemble on that occasion in their customary places of worship and in the forms approved by their own consciences render the homage due to the Divine Majesty for the wonderful things He has done in the nation’s behalf and invoke the influence of His Holy Spirit to subdue the anger which has produced and so long sustained a needless and cruel rebellion …”
Later, in the fall, he issued a better-known proclamation in which he enumerated the good things of the nation despite the war. “No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things,” he said. “They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.”
Franklin Roosevelt
In 1944, as World War II raged, Franklin D. Roosevelt told the nation, “I suggest a nationwide reading of the Holy Scriptures during the period from Thanksgiving Day to Christmas. Let every man of every creed go to his own version of the Scriptures for a renewed and strengthening contact with those eternal truths and majestic principles which have inspired such measure of true greatness as this nation has achieved.”
Even amid the prosperity and relative peace of modern times, President Joe Biden in 2022 issued a proclamation that said, “As Scripture says: ‘let us rejoice always, pray continually and give thanks in all circumstances.’ This is a special time in the greatest country on Earth, so let us be grateful.”
George Washington
They were following the example set by George Washington, as he proclaimed Nov. 26, 1789 the first presidentially denoted Thanksgiving after ratification of the Constitution. It was to be a day, he said, “devoted by the people of these states to the service of that great and glorious being, who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be — That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks — for his kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation — for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his providence …”
As you gather around a feast today with loved ones, remember that the holiday has kept Americans grounded through dark times and days of prosperity. Remember that gratitude’s enduring power is its ability to instill hope for a bright future.