Happy Thanksgiving to my faithful few readers and anyone else who stumbles across this posting. A few links commended to you, followed by a couple important passages. First, the links:
- Michelle Malkin gives thanks for American ingenuity
- Al Maurer explores lessons of capitalism in the origins of Thanksgiving
- Many of us can echo Rossputin’s expression of gratitude
- Check out or re-visit my 2008 series on “What I’m Thankful For” to help stir the mind to thankfulness and focus the heart on the meaning of the occasion
Next, a psalm of David from the Scriptures for Thanksgiving Day reflection:
Psalm 103:1-18 (NASB)
1 Bless the LORD, O my soul; And all that is within me, bless His holy name.
2 Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits;
3 Who pardons all your iniquities; who heals all your diseases;
4 Who redeems your life from the pit; who crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion;
5 Who satisfies your years with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle.
6 The LORD performs righteous deeds and judgments for all who are oppressed.
7 He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the sons of Israel.
8 The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness.
9 He will not always strive with us, nor will He keep His anger forever.
10 He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him.
12 As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.
13 Just as a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him.
14 For He Himself knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust.
15 As for man, his days are like grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourishes.
16 When the wind has passed over it, it is no more, and its place acknowledges it no longer.
17 But the lovingkindness of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him, and His righteousness to children’s children,
18 To those who keep His covenant and remember His precepts to do them.
Finally, from Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation:
The year that is drawing towards 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 of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.
No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the 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 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 set 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 the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do 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, tranquillity and Union. [emphases added]
God bless one and all, and have a Happy Thanksgiving!
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