Exactly 325 years ago today, Americans celebrated the first national day of Thanksgiving as resolved by Congress and proclaimed by President George Washington. November 26, 1689, memorialized the first official Thanksgiving ceremony that occurred in 1619 at Berkeley Plantation in nearby Charles City County, Virginia.
Although New England is often mistakenly credited as the site where Thanksgiving was founded, those versed in history recognize that the holiday is rooted here in Virginia. To commemorate this milestone, President John F. Kennedy issued a Thanksgiving proclamation in 1963 declaring Berkeley as the site of the first official Thanksgiving.
Perhaps the most sobering and timeless Thanksgiving proclamation, however, was offered by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863, halfway through the Civil War:
"We have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us."
Today our country is among the most blessed in the world. The majority of Americans will spend Thanksgiving with friends and family while enjoying an abundance of food. Gone are the nation's early days of desperation when sustenance was scarce and life uncertain. Nowadays, preparing Thanksgiving dinner entails going to a grocery store (or two) and purchasing readily available food. Modern conveniences have made life remarkably safe and comfortable.
As you enjoy Thanksgiving's bounty, I urge you to pause for a minute and consider the blessings we have been granted. In this nation, we truly have much for which to be grateful. Tomorrow, please join me in celebrating Thanksgiving in the spirit of George Washington: with "public thanksgiving and prayer."
Happy Thanksgiving from my family to yours! |
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