| Millions of parents throughout the land are lamenting the absence of their kids on Thanksgiving. Many are simply missing in action. "You don't call, you don't write, you don't love us anymore" is the plaintive cry of mothers heard throughout our nation. Grown children are frequently just too darn busy to commune with the family. They are frequently having their Thanksgiving dinners at Denny's, at drive-throughs or just curled up with some brewskies, watching football with their buddies. Few understand the solemnity of the holiday. It was our first and perhaps most important national holiday. It still is. It may be a surprise to hear, but the original intent of the holiday was not just to gorge ourselves over a big meal with Mom and Dad. It was meant to be a day of reflection and of national unity, filled with prayer and introspection. Three years after the Pilgrims' arrival and just two years after their first Thanksgiving, on November 29, 1623, Plymouth colony Gov. William Bradford made this official, politically incorrect, proclamation: "To all ye Pilgrims: Inasmuch as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat peas, beans, squashes and garden vegetables, and has made the forests 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 pestilence and disease, has granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our conscience, now I proclaim that all ye Pilgrims � render thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all his blessings." Today, he might want to issue apologies to vegans for the seafood, to Dr. Atkins' high-protein dieters for the peas and beans and to Jews for the non-kosher clams. But it wasn't until just after the signing of the Constitution that Congress immediately moved to pass a resolution asking for a National Day of Thanksgiving and Prayer (yes, liberals, that's right -- prayer) at which time George Washington intoned this famous proclamation in 1789: "Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor -- and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness. "That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks -- for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country � " The proclamation was not about turkey, feasts or families. It was about devotion and solemnity to God and country. Our nation's first president, and perhaps its greatest leader, captured the spirit of the holiday a bit more eloquently than Governor Bradford. But it wasn't until nearly 80 years later, in 1863, in the midst of one of our nation's bloodiest conflicts, the Civil War, that Abraham Lincoln had found the equanimity to proclaim the Day of Thanksgiving an annual national holiday. Here's his solemn proclamation: "No human has 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 .� I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, 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 .� [It is] announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord .� It has seemed to me fit and proper that God should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people." In San Francisco, and in much of America, the mere mention of God has been stricken in relation to this holiday. Like Christmas, this was traditionally a deeply religious holiday of humble thanks to the Lord. But somewhere along the line, the word "prayer" was dropped and the holy day (holiday) became just plain old "Thanksgiving." Now, neither holiday has much relation to religion. Thanksgiving has been reduced to another frantic shopping day, and, for others, a four-day, football-crazed, beer-soaked tailgate party. The day following Thanksgiving is notable. It's the benchmark for the retailer's well-being, the busiest shopping day of the year. But Thanksgiving is no longer about giving thanks or giving of any kind. Most would say, "To whom, and for what?" It's now all been sanitized in a way that erases our collective memory, like in George Orwell's "1984." |