A Thanksgiving Proclamation Continues to Ring True

There is not arguing that on this Thanksgiving Day 2010 Americans are gathering together under a cloud of anxiety such as we've rarely, if ever, experienced since the Great Depression in the 1930s. While it may be true that technically the Great Recession is over, too many Americans are unemployed and even more live in fear of the future. The economy, terrorism, continued war in Afghanistan, a federal government so caught in partisanship that nothing can get done: all this and more causes Americans to believe that the country our children are inheriting will be worse than the one in which many of us grew up.

How is one to be thankful in the midst of this sort of anxiety and with so many insurmountable problems?

Perhaps we can learn a bit from the past. Lincoln Caplan writes in today's New York Times about the Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1936 written by Wilbur Cross, the Governor of Connecticut from 1931-1939. In the midst of the Depression, in a year in which Connecticut had suffered from disastrous floods, labor strife, and the struggles to make ends meet day in and day out, Cross (to quote Caplan) lifted "his gaze to the stars" so the citizens of Connecticut could "rediscover their hopes and dreams."

All of which is to say that in the midst of dark and anxious times, we need Thanksgiving Day to remind us that we are blessed by God and that gratitude is a key ingredient to moving forward with hope.

In his Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1936, Cross reminded the people of Connecticut (and anyone reading his proclamation today) to be thankful "for all the creature comforts, . . . for all those things, as dear as breath to the body, that quicken a man's faith in his manhood, . . . for the brotherly word and act; . . . for honor held above price; for steadfast courage and zeal in the long, long search after truth; for liberty and for justice granted by each to his fellow . . .; and for the crowning glory and mercy of peace upon our land . . ."

Good words to remember this Thanksgiving Day.

Despite all that is happening in our world, we are blessed in countless ways. Thanks be to God!