Those who sowed with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying the seed, will come again with joy, shouldering their sheaves.—Psalm 126
When Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the first national observance of Thanksgiving in 1863, our country was torn by war, threatened by foreign powers and struggling with “needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry.”
In calling for the holiday, Lincoln gave thanks for freedom and the bounty of the harvest and also asked God’s “tender care for all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers” in the Civil War.
The connection between bounty and need, thanksgiving and suffering, is as old as the psalms. We mark it every evening in the Compline service, when we ask God to “give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted and shield the joyous.”
Tthe shadow cast on the first official holiday 147 years ago was much darker the shadows of today, but those of us who are fortunate enough to have a Thanksgiving feast this year must ask God’s mercy and justice for far too many of our brothers and sisters. Our country is torn by warfare, political strife and discrimination, and many of us are haunted by economic uncertainty. Our resolve to care for those in need is diminished by recession, foreclosures, job loss, and the excess of living beyond the means of our economy and our environment. We all know people who are jobless, and many are increasingly, and understandably, desperate.
Our forebears celebrated Thanksgiving in the midst of a bloody civil war, and like them, we behold suffering that makes our own gratitude more heartfelt. We sing that “God our Maker doth provide for our wants to be supplied,” but the only hands God has to supply the wants of the world are ours. In sharing what we have and demanding justice for those who have not, we give the greatest thanks of all.
–Rebecca Wilson
Happy Thanksgiving from the Cafe.