"Mr. Turkey Man" explores the meaning of Thanksgiving

Middleton Times Tribune - November 22, 2007
by Dietrich Gruen, Middleton Outreach Ministry

A visitor from another world coming to America in late November might get the wild idea that we worship the turkey goddess (if not also the football gods). At this time every year, Middleton Outreach Ministry and the volunteers at St. Luke's Lutheran Church give out more than 300 turkeys and Thanksgiving baskets to needy families. Asbury United Methodist Church, another MOM congregation, is cooking up dozens of turkeys for neighbors from the community for a Thanksgiving meal. I dance to the turkey, too, all dressed up and playing around as "Mr. Turkey Man" for the Thanksgiving basket pick-up.

Yet, there is a rub, as we thank God for the grub. Many of our neighbors do not have enough warm clothes to play around in November. Many will go hungry this week. I feel conflicted by the abundance of the feast. I wonder what is the deeper meaning of this national holiday, with its often-conflicting themes?

Let's look closer at some more conflicting themes and ironic twists associated with Thanksgiving.

What are you particularly thankful for? Or tell me about an experience during the past year which has caused you to feel more grateful. I encourage people to reflect on such questions around dinner on Thanksgiving, or in phone calls made that day.

We often call attention to God's grace, especially at Thanksgiving. Being a community pastor and talkative guy, I am often called upon to say grace. But in saying "Grace," I do not mean just some prayer chanted at mealtimes; for me, extending grace is a way of life. While I often pile up thanksgiving prayers higher than the mashed potatoes, a simple "thank you" is enough. As Meister Eckhart, a 16th century mystic, often said, "If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is 'thank you,' that would suffice."

Instead of words, let your good works speak, so that others may see and glorify God (as the Apostle Peter urges us, in 1 Peter 2:12). Or, to quote the late President JFK, "As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words at all, but to live by them." St. Francis of Assisi and the late Mother Teresa would add, "Preach the Gospel at all times; if necessary, use words."

My family and I have so much to be thankful for--good health, good jobs, good friends, good kids. As my family shares a Thanksgiving meal, I take mental notes, and later gather accompanying photos, and prepare my "Dear all, What-a-wonderful-year-it-has-been and a count-your-blessings" type newsletter.

For us it's easy to keep up that attitude of gratitude, whether by either word or deed. But while it is ever so easy to thank God for the grace we ourselves have received, it requires great grace to always thank God for the grace given to others, especially those who we believe do not deserve what they got.

But then we miss the point, don't we? For it is all by Grace. None of us are deserving.

The irony is never more obvious than when death and memorializing of loved ones falls across a Thanksgiving week. For any of us left behind, Thanksgiving can become thanks-living, even thanks-singing, all year long. Thankful hearts are filled with song, as from Psalm 100:

"Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the lands!

Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into God's presence with singing!

Know that the Lord is God! It is he that made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgivin, and his courts with praise!

Give thanks to him, bless his name!

For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures for ever, and his faithfulness to all generations."

Three weeks ago, my mother-in-law died as she had always lived--with a song in her heart, singing even in the emergency room of the hospital, soon to "enter his [pearly] gates with thanksgiving."

I am thankful for all the memories of Thanksgiving Day itself, often spent with either my mom or my wife's mom demonstrating in word or deed or song their attitude of gratitude. Both matriarchs are no longer with us now, but we sense their joyful, grateful spirit all the time, especially at Thanksgiving.

Still, I wonder how "the other half" lives. Life can be very trying for MOM clients. When your child is hungry, or your sick parent is wracked with pain, or you have no idea where you and your family will sleep the next night, or you face a court trial the week after Thanksgiving, it's hard to find something for which you can be thankful. So, for just a few minutes on Thanksgiving Day, step outside your situation and just "be." Find something of value, no matter how small, to be thankful for. In giving thanks, you will be lightening your load, even if for only a moment. Then take time not only to show kindness to those you hold most dear, but extend a helping hand to others, as well, perhaps Sharing Christmas through MOM, matched with a stranger who becomes a friend.

If you research the origins of Thanksgiving, this will yield even more ironic themes. Centuries ago, many Europeans were living in such squalid conditions, battling hunger and the aftermath of the Plague, and being terrorized in the name of religion, that they came to America, the so-called land of opportunity, in the hopes of building a better life.

These immigrants, the so-called Pilgrims, were welcomed by the inhabitants of America, the Indians, who were hospitable to the newcomers in every sense of the word. Unprepared as the Pilgrims were for the starvation and sickness of that harsh New England winter in 1620, nearly half died before spring. The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than shelters that first year; nevertheless, they set aside a day of thanksgiving. Persevering in prayer, and assisted by helpful Indians, they reaped a bountiful harvest the following summer.

The grateful Pilgrims then declared a three-day feast, starting on Dec. 13, 1621, to thank God and to celebrate with their American Indian friends. While not the first Thanksgiving in America (thanksgiving services were held in Virginia as early as 1607), this was America's first Thanksgiving Festival.

But this version of Thanksgiving is drained of its traditional meaning with outrageous irony: How is it then that the descendants of the Pilgrims managed to take over all the land in America and banish the Indians to hot, arid reservations in the middle of nowhere? There's no justice in that. So how, if at all, do the Indians celebrate Thanksgiving?

National Thanksgiving Proclamations by American Presidents for two centuries, from George Washington to Franklin Roosevelt, each credit God's providence in the events of the nation. George Washington issued his first national Thanksgiving Proclamation in 1789:

"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...for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in the tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed...and also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions--to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually...To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us--and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best."

In researching how Thanksgiving Day came to be a national holiday on an annual basis, we discover even more ironic twists. Many credit this development to the persistent nagging and editorializing of Sarah Joseph Hale, editor of Godey's Lady's Book. For 30 years, she promoted the idea of a national Thanksgiving Day, contacting President after President until Abraham Lincoln responded in 1863 by setting aside the last Thursday of November as a national Day of Thanksgiving.

Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation came at a time of spiritual crisis for him personally and for this nation. It was while Lincoln was walking among the thousands of graves at Gettysburg that he committed his life to Christ. As he explained to a friend: "When I left Springfield [to assume the Presidency] I asked the people to pray for me. I was not a Christian. When I buried my son, the severest trial of my life, I was not a Christian. But when I went to Gettysburg and saw the graves of thousands of our soldiers, I then and there consecrated myself to Christ."

Because the nation was engaged in a bloody Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln saw fit to issue the proclamation which created the day we now celebrate. The full text of that proclamation is as follows:

"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 so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of almighty God. No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of teh 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 see 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 ascriptions justly due Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they 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."

For the next 75 years, every president followed Lincoln's precedent annually declaring a national Thanksgiving Day. Then in 1941, Congress, following President FDR's declaration in 1939, permanently established the fourth Thursday of each November as the national holiday we celebrate this week. Presidents from both sides of the aisle still like to quote Lincoln in their proclamations of Thanksgiving, in order to promote healing within a conflicted, sometimes war-torn nation.

That again seems appropriate in 2007. As we Americans celebrate Thanksgiving this year, we find ourselves involved in someone else's civil strife, this one in the Middle East. Just as Abraham Lincoln was deeply moved because of the suffering he witnessed due to the Civil War, today I share with most Americans a similar desire to "commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife." I, too, appeal to "the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy."

Giving thanks in all circumstances--in life and death, for abundance and want, for good and bad, with words and deeds, amidst great adversity and diversity, remembering both wrath and mercy, victors and victims, grieving family and friends alike, singing praise or making a joyful noise in funny costumes--what irony! But that's the meaning of Thanksgiving for me.

May you and yours enjoy a most meaningful Thanksgiving Day, as well.