Jour de lAction de Grâce By Peter van Gorder Jour de lAction de Grâce : French Canadian for A Green Day of Thanks (Thanksgiving) Today is Thanksgiving and we are celebrating it not with the ‘Indians’ (native Americans) but the Indians in Mumbai, India. Though it is observed in the US, Canada, Liberia, and Puerto Rico, most of the rest of the world doesn’t seem to know much about it; yet Germany has a similar festival called Erntedankfest - thanking God for a good harvest (and a good excuse to drink a lot of beer during Oktoberfest), and Japan has its Kinrō Kansha no Hi: Labor Thanksgiving Day – a day to commemorate labor and production and thank each other as well. Most cultures and religions put importance on giving thanks to the Creator. The Native Americans of that time were no exception. They had special thanksgiving ceremonies for the green corn harvest, for the arrival of certain fish species, whales, the first snow, and for the arrival of their new year in May. George Washington, the first American president proclaimed the first nation-wide thanksgiving celebration in America of November 26, 1789, as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God.” Presidents that followed thought it a good chance to get people of different persuasions sitting down at the same table, a step towards unity in time of civil war. Having lived in many different countries when this holiday rolls around, I usually don my Pilgrim outfit and recruit a few others to be Native Americans to do a skit to dramatize the story of Thanksgiving and explain a bit of how it began. This year instead I thought I would find out more about it and write down the gist of the feast. After an extremely difficult voyage the 102 passengers arrived in Cape Cod, Massachusetts in 1620. The passengers and crew were a combination of religious separatists, indentured servants, and others. Because they had a delayed departure and arrived in winter they were dangerously low on provisions; about half of the passengers and crew died in the first year from sickness and malnutrition. The next year, thanks to help from the local Native Americans and the Lord of the Harvest, they learned how to plant crops using fish as fertilizer and other tried and proven methods taught to them. They were so thankful they decided to hold a celebratory feast and to show their gratitude to the Lord for their survival. In the years that followed they continued the practice. In 1623 Governor William Bradford, issued a formal proclamation: Inasmuch as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, peas, squashes and garden vegetables, and made the forest to abound with game and the sea with fish and clams, and inasmuch as he has protected us from the ravages of the savages, has spared us from the pestilence and granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience, now I, your magistrate do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your wives and ye little ones, do gather at ye meeting house, on ye hill, between the hours of nine and twelve in the daytime on Thursday, November ye 29th, of the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty-three, and the third year since ye Pilgrims landed on ye Plymouth Rock, there to listen to ye Pastor and render Thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all his blessings.” Back a year earlier to the first Thanksgiving: As some would say, in a way that foreshadowed events to come, the “first comers’ as they called themselves, expressed their thankfulness by shooting muskets and cannons into the air. This alerted a scouting party of about 90 warriors of the local Wampanoag tribe who came by to see what was up and if a battle was going on that needed their help. They had recently signed a mutual protection pact which promised that they would protect each other and ‘watch each other’s backs’. After they found out what was happening the Wampanoags joined in the festivities and brought 5 deer to the feast; seems like the good food was shared and enjoyed by all. If only relations could have stayed as friendly. One of the descendants of that tribe is Ramona Peters, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s Tribal Historic Preservation Officer. She had this to say about the positive aspects of the holiday. “A heartfelt Thanksgiving is very important to me as a person. It’s important that we give thanks. For me, it’s a state of being. You want to live in a state of thanksgiving, meaning that you use the creativity that the Creator gave you. You use your talents. You find out what those are and you cultivate them and that gives thanks in action.” How true. Thanksgiving is a good time to give thanks, even when you may not have much. There is always something you can praise the Lord about. Often when we do, surprise blessings come a knocking. I have been there. About 40 years ago, I was living in Bogor, Indonesia and we had a very tight budget. A Thanksgiving feast was not on the cards. But on that Thanksgiving Day we prayed for a special dinner. A little while later, our neighbor appeared and gave us his goose that had been run over by a car neatly at the neck, which gave us a sumptuous feast. God is good! Some day we will ‘enter into His gates with thanksgiving’ and enjoy a fantastic feast called the Marriage Supper of the Lamb with people of all races and cultures. Apart from all the heavenly viands offered, I imagine there will be pumpkin pie and cranberries on the menu. A big part of the thankfulness and gratitude we will feel is when we realize how big His love for us is despite of our mistakes and shortcomings. It is where yesterday ends and a new life begins. It is with that end in mind and the joy of the journey in getting there that we give thanks on this Thanksgiving Day. Notes: Rev 19:9 And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God. Mat 8:11 And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. Joh 17:21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: Rev 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
Posted on: Thu, 28 Nov 2013 13:32:56 +0000