THANKSGIVING PERSPECTIVES: DIFFERENT LOOKS AT AN AMERICAN HOLIDAY

As Thanksgiving approaches, then passes, we pause and focus our lenses on this uniquely American holiday. As we’ve said, the three of us, great friends though we are, are not all alike. We see things differently sometimes, as our individual perspectives on Thanksgiving so starkly demonstrate:

Woodson

I feel conflicted at Thanksgiving. I find joy and sadness uncomfortably co-existing within my spirit.

The First Thanksgiving

I remember celebrating Thanksgiving in grade school at Holly Springs Elementary.  My teacher, my mom, invariably led us in a traditional Thanksgiving carol that went something like: “The year 1620 the Pilgrims came over. They landed at Plymouth Rock, then built up their homes. At harvest time, they started our Thanksgiving Day.” My mother didn’t teach us the Pilgrims were European immigrants who had, through war, confiscated from the natives the land on which they celebrated. She didn’t tell us native resistance to European conquest persisted until 1898.

So, each season when I sit down to a wonderful Thanksgiving meal with family and friends, I can’t help but ask myself: How do my Native American brothers and sisters feel today?  The disenfranchisement of Native American voters in North Dakota this year reminded me of their unique struggle.

I am truly grateful to be an American, but what about them? While I have much for which to be thankful – a superb education, a wonderful wife, five great children, a hopeful future, and a guardian of my liberty in a free press – I can’t help but wonder how Native Americans feel. Do they feel as native South Africans felt under apartheid?  I wonder.

Rob

The Tuesday evening before Thanksgiving week, I sat in a church with my significant other and almost 600 others for the 20^th annual Faiths Together Thanksgiving  program near my home in The Woodlands, Texas. This celebration promotes religious acceptance and convenes the area’s faith traditions for an evening of music, inspirational messages, fellowship, and food. Some congregations refuse participation apparently out of a reluctance to join in services with certain other religious groups. Nevertheless, the program brings together  Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus. and many other faith groups in a learning experience about one another and a celebration of commonality, not an accentuation of difference.

As I sat there listening, for example, as a Muslim professor described the numerous references to Jesus in the Quran and watching the joyous faces in a choir made up of

members from seven or eight different congregations, I felt especially thankful for living in a country where such a thing can happen. Despite America’s imperfections, we get many things right, religious freedom being one of them. Increasing hatred based on religious bias notwithstanding, our First Amendment and its twin guarantees of freedom from the tyranny of a state sanctioned church and from government interference in worship, including the right not to worship at all, stands almost alone in the world in its protection of religious choice. Citizens of many countries could never attend a program like Tuesday’s. I give thanks such a thing can happen in my country.

Henry

In my childhood, Thanksgiving was an exceptionally joyful time for interacting with family and friends.  The fall colors,

wonderful aromas, the school and church plays, and visits with family members made my world a beautiful, safe place full of love and enjoyment. There was a continuing expression of thankfulness at home, school, and church.  Our church, in fact, distributed dinners to the needy, though I didn’t then understand the depth of poverty and want in our world.

As the years passed, Thanksgiving became more complex. Yes, we still enjoyed family and friends and I helped our church distribute meals to the needy. I got my kids involved by promising a great breakfast at a restaurant if they woke up early enough to help. The bribe worked.

                          

In the midst of this joy, a pervasive sadness attached itself to me, a sadness I haven’t shaken. As we give thanks for our bounty, I think of all the pain, hunger, loneliness, and hopelessness far too many people across the globe feel. So, I increase my giving and I volunteer more, searching for ways of helping, and I guess, quelling that sadness.

I’ve concluded sorrow may be the price we pay for refusing to express the kind of love that would help those in need. We have the resources and technical skill that would end hunger, but we don’t. Practical solutions are complex and we erect walls of indifference and apathy. Suppose, however, each of us found a way to make some difference each day. We might stumble upon a movement. 

How can I ask for Blessings

On the Universe

And not universal Blessing?

Though I cannot comprehend All

I can entertain the notion of All

And

Wish you well

While enhancing that solitary Blessing

With the constant universal march of Grace

Does absolution follow?