Some thoughts on Thanksgiving from the original George W.

(By Erik)

Jeanie and I were at the mall yesterday and saw Christmas decorations, gifts and trimmings aplenty. And yes, we saw Santa, too (from a distance. I didn’t go get in line to see him or anything. Jeanie wouldn’t let me. I promised her I wouldn’t cry when I got up there to him, but she didn’t believe me).

These days it seems like we skip Thanksgiving and go straight from Halloween to Christmas. There are tons of Christmas commercials on TV already — and none of them are very Christmasy, either! For some reason Target and Old Navy, two stores we frequently frequent, have released Christmas commercials that I find especially cold and sterile.

There’s no red and green — just blue and white (evidently, the new Christmas colors). And instead of Santa and stockings, there’s a white-haired, Warhol-looking European designer saying, “I have created for you a winter wonderland.” Where’s the love?

Anyway, back to Thanksgiving.

Have we lost the true meaning of Thanksgiving? Have we demoted it to “Practice Christmas Turkey Day?”

To jog our memory, I present this excerpt from George Washington’s 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation. It’s rich with faith language — and it really made me stop and think.

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be 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 in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

We talked about this a bit in our Bible class this morning at Memorial Road. We were in Matthew 26, talking about the Lord’s Supper and how it took place during Passover. We talked about what the Passover means to Jewish people and what the Lord’s Supper means to us. Have we lost sight of that as well?

I think that George Washington would have made a great preacher.

If he wanted to write for the Chronicle, though, we’d have to have a little chat about run-on sentences!