Thanksgiving
What does History Say About Thanksgiving…
What Does the Bible Say About Giving Thanks?
Psalm 107:8
Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men,
Colossians 3:15
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.
2 Corinthians 9:11
You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us, your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.
What else does the Bible say about being Thankful?
The first American Thanksgiving was celebrated less than a year after the Christian Plymouth colonists had settled in the new land of America. The first Thanksgiving Day on July 30, 1623, was a celebration decreed by Governor William Bradford, a Separatist who had fled the Church of England. “Harvest festivals” were days of thanking God for plentiful crops. During the Revolutionary War, eight special days of thanks were observed for victories and for being saved from dangers. On November 26, 1789, President George Washington issued a general proclamation for a day of thanks. America’s national day of Thanksgiving was brought about by Abraham Lincoln on Oct. 3rd, 1863 who proclaimed an annual National Day of Thanksgiving:
“on the last Thursday of November, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.” In this Thanksgiving proclamation, the President said:
“…announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord… But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, by the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own… It has seemed to me fit and proper that God should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people…”
Another American Perspective
Jacqueline Keeler, a member of the Dineh Nation and the Yankton Dakota Sioux works with the American Indian Child Resource Center in Oakland, California. Her work has appeared in Winds of Change, an American Indian journal that is associated with the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) headquartered in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
‘When the Pilgrims came to Plymouth Rock, they were poor and hungry — half of them died within a few months from disease and hunger. When Squanto, a Wampanoag man, found them, they were in a pitiful state. He spoke English, having traveled to Europe, and took pity on them. Their English crops had failed. The native people fed them through the winter and taught them how to grow their food.
These were not merely “friendly Indians.” They had already experienced European slave traders raiding their villages for a hundred years or so, and they were wary — but it was their way to give freely to those who had nothing. Among many of our people, showing that you can give without holding back is the way to earn respect. Among the Dakota, my father’s people, they say, when asked to give, “Are we not Dakota and alive?” It was believed that by giving there would be enough for all — the exact opposite of the system we live in now, which is based on selling, not giving.
To the Pilgrims, and most English and European peoples, the Wampanoags were heathens, and of the Devil. They saw Squanto not as an equal but as an instrument of their God to help his chosen people, themselves.
Since that initial sharing, Native American food has spread around the world. Nearly 70 percent of all crops grown today were originally cultivated by Native American peoples. I sometimes wonder what they ate in Europe before they met us. Spaghetti without tomatoes? Meat and potatoes without potatoes? And at the “first Thanksgiving,” the Wampanoags provided most of the food — and signed a treaty granting Pilgrims the right to the land at Plymouth, the real reason for the first Thanksgiving.
What did the Europeans give in return? Within 20 years European disease and treachery had decimated the Wampanoags. Most diseases then came from animals that Europeans had domesticated. Cowpox from cows led to smallpox, one of the great killers of our people, spread through gifts of blankets used by infected Europeans. Some estimate that diseases accounted for a death toll reaching 90 percent in some Native American communities. By 1623, Mather the elder, a Pilgrim leader, was giving thanks to his God for destroying the heathen savages to make way “for a better growth,” meaning his people.
In stories told by the Dakota people, an evil person always keeps his or her heart in a secret place separate from the body. The hero must find that secret place and destroy the heart in order to stop evil.
I see, in the “First Thanksgiving” story, a hidden Pilgrim heart. The story of that heart is the real tale than needs to be told. What did it hold? Bigotry, hatred, greed, self-righteousness? We have seen the evil that it caused in the 350 years since. Genocide, environmental devastation, poverty, world wars, racism.
Where is the hero who will destroy that heart of evil? I believe it must be each of us. Indeed, when I give thanks this Thursday and I cook my native food, I will be thinking of this hidden heart and how my ancestors survived the evil it caused.
Because if we can survive, with our ability to share and to give intact, then the evil and the good will that met that Thanksgiving day in the land of the Wampanoag will have come full circle. And the healing can begin.’
We at New Light…
gather with family and friends to share a meal that varies from year to year.
Turkey is a mainstay, but we have also prepared and served prime rib, duck, and chicken.
Tamales and Paella are usually there.
(I try to have “Arroz con Gandules” and there must be pumpkin pie, pecan pie, cranberry sauce, cornbread stuffing, sweet potato casserole with marshmallows, buttered sweet corn, and my son’s favorite, “Bake N Serve Rolls.”)
Other sides can be mixed veggies or succotash, and some sort of potato. Desserts are very important with pies topping the list! Apple pies, cherry/rhubarb pie, sweet potato pie, and coconut creme pies showing up on occasion!
Ice Creme is usually a pumpkin or cinnamon type with whipped creme. Cakes have ranged from the family favorite, Pineapple Upside Down Cake to Italian Creme.
Every year some of our recipes stay the same, some get better and some we never want to try again, but one thing is certain:
We all give thanks for the Salvation that keeps us full of gratitude for His abundant blessings! We all have thankfulness in our hearts not just for one day of the year, or because of whatever the day may be called, but because of who guides our life…Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! We pray that you will seek Him and find Him…He loves you and will change your life forever and you will never have regrets again! Blessings from our home to you all.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV