Comments on: Thanksgiving 2008

By: J. Meng

J. Meng — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 01:56:38 +0000

First of all, I offer thanksgiving to God everyday for the fact that I am. I thank Him for my parents, siblings, and all of my relatives and friends and neighbors. I am grateful for the land I was born in. I love this country and have traveled across it; have camped, hunted, and fished in some of its most beautiful settings. I offer thanksgiving to Him for having given me the gift of Faith, for the power to assent to His revelations and to worship Him as He wants to be worshipped. Although this might sound weird, I thank Him for the travails and obstacles He has placed in my life, because even though I have failed more times than I want to recount, they are for my well-being. I have thanked Him for the employment he has brought me so that I could earn a living. While Thanksgiving is a meaningful and symbolic, formal holiday, our thanks should be everyday. And, Mr. Murchison, thank you for this article in which you invite us to give our reasons for thanksgiving.

By: TJF

TJF — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 18:02:07 +0000

Mr. Murchison is one of the rarest birds of North America: a pious Anglican. As a former fellow-sufferer with him, I know how difficult it is to speak of faith in public, especially when one is a syndicated columnist addressing a broad audience of cynical conservatives. I think JE's suspicion in the last paragraph is quite shrewd and absolutely right.

By: JE

JE — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:31:07 +0000

Joseph Salemi @5: Yes, but the column talks about things *actually* to be thankful for. The old 'chastisement is beneficial' line could have been said by a Zeus-worshipper or an atheist -- and I don't see much else 'to be thankful for' in the article. Talk of 'soldiering on until next Thanksgiving for the sake of general human achievement' is more appropriate as a reply to the question 'why don't we all kill ourselves?' (a favorite of the thoughtful pagan, not always well-met) than anything specifically having to do with 'making all things new'. But feast-days, for Christians, are intended to signify and embody 'making all things new'. The very cyclical repetitiousness of calendrical holidays is intended to constitute this, in part: you remember last Thanksgiving pretty well, and maybe we're having turkey again this year, but it's new and fresh for the thirtieth time! in and on account of the Resurrection. But perhaps I'm being unfair to the column, which may deliberately have been adopting or rhetorically addressing a modern secular point of view rather more than I originally thought.

By: Joseph Salemi

Joseph Salemi — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:44:16 +0000

JE @ 4

But that is exactly what Thanksgiving has become at this point in American history -- a totally secular holiday. Surely you knew that.

By: MattSwartz

MattSwartz — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:48:02 +0000

JE,
Wherever and whenever people are honestly bound together, it's due to the merciful intervention of the Holy Spirit.

I'm all for acknowledging Christ, but there's a lot to be said for resting in the knowledge that He's with us always, not just when we name-check Him.

By: JE

JE — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 02:05:11 +0000

I wonder, though, whether anything in this column has anything to do with Resurrection? Couldn't everything above have been said by a decent pagan -- without any Covenants, Old and legal or New and substantial?

As spot-on to American history as this column seems, and precisely because it sounds fair to America, the Christ-less-ness presented makes our Thanksgiving sound totally secular, and religious only in the society-binding sense.

(This is no more than an ill-considered response to a column intended, I think, to encourage its readers, but contrariwise having rather depressed me!)

By: Grumpy Old Man

Grumpy Old Man — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 01:33:22 +0000

Mr Peters, your claque is clamoring for you to write and publish your memoirs.

By: Etienne Gervaise

Etienne Gervaise — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 23:43:52 +0000

Well said, Mr Murchison. We all call upon God during hard times, but Deuteronomy 28 warns nations to thank God during the good times lest we become the tail and not the head, the borrower and not the lender. The listed consequences of neglecting God are very dire and specific.

But I wish reporters would stop asking people, "How do you feel...?" I don't think feelings are that important, because it reminds me of a horrible 70s pop song.

By: robert m. peters

robert m. peters — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 18:03:58 +0000

I give thanks that God in His great mercy has made me aware that I am fallen and has thereby emancipated me from the evil of belief in my own goodness which can, among other things, bring me to make even war on "lesser" men for some "noble cause."

I give thanks that God in His great mercy has made me aware, in my fallen state, of His Grace made possible because He wrote Himself into history as the Second Person of the Trinity, the Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and as my Kinsman Redeemer through His passion, death and resurrection reconciled me unto Himself.

As my pagan ancestors, I give thanks at this time of year for Hugin and Munin, Thought and Memory, as my mind goes back over Thanksgivings, Advent Tides, and Christmases past. My birthday was this past Monday. I was born on Thanksgiving Day in 1949. My mother edging toward ninety-two named a score of folks present on the day of my birth. Including my mother and me, only three of us are left. We spent hours Monday telling stories about each of those who are now a part of that "great cloud of witnesses" who pray for us as we continue to run the race which they have long since finished.

I give thanks for yesterday as I journeyed up Louisiana 155 between Ashland and Saline and experienced a wonderful irony: an proud tom turkey of the wild variety pranced across the narrow, tree-encroached road followed by six hens, either oblivious to or in courage mocking that it was the day before Thanksgiving.

I give thanks that I will have the opportunity and strength to utter a Thanksgiving prayer today.