George Washington's Thanksgiving Proclamation

Covenant Zone wishes a Happy Thanksgiving to our American readers.

On a day dedicated to giving thanks, I thought it would be fitting to take a look at the first Thanksgiving of the United States of America, a different date than that of the very first Thanksgiving **in** America... I have in mind, the one proclaimed by President George Washington.

His Proclamation:

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 favour; 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 THANSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"

NOW THEREFORE, I do recommend and assign THURSDAY, the TWENTY-SIXTH DAY of NOVEMBER next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; 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 previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed;-- for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish Constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted;-- for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge;-- and, in general, for all the great and various favours which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also, that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions;-- to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us); and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

GIVEN under my hand, at the city of New-York, the third day of October, in the year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine.

(signed) G. Washington

"...Dedicated to the great task remaining before us…"

We missed an important date yesterday, but the locals didn’t:
Hundreds convene on anniversary of the Gettysburg address.

The words that struck a chord in America’s heart resounded Monday morning at Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, on the 144th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s immortal Gettysburg Address.
...
Hundreds, braving bone-chilling temperatures, convened Monday morning to celebrate Lincoln’s speech, near the same spot where he trumpeted his famous words 144 years ago. More than 3,500 Civil War soldiers are buried at the cemetery, dedicated by Lincoln on Nov. 19, 1863 as “a final resting place for those who here gave their lives so this nation might live.”
...
“The fact that we’re here remembering this,” said co-keynote speaker Jeff Shaara, “is a greater treasure than anything Abraham Lincoln could have expected that day.”...

A fitting ceremony to occur on the week of American Thanksgiving. Giving thanks in graceful manner for blessings that have come our way is good for the soul, as the golden virtue of optimism springs from gratitude, from humble recognition of the good that has already come our way.
Appreciation of the gifts of our past beckons the imagined possibility of further blessings laying in wait over the horizon, within our unknown future. As we age as individuals we grow to see in our parents past actions all the devotion and sacrifice that as children we took for granted; so too as an aging nation we may come, hopefully, to appreciate the painful privations undertaken by those who came before us, paving the way towards our better fortunes today.
Belief in a "happy ending" seems unnatural, if we are to judge by the seeming scarcity of this belief among adults today... and, presumably, in all times. It is through the humility involved in taking a second look, and adopting an awareness of one’s past that we may learn how much has always been done on our behalf. Our families, our families' families, each acting in faith that their sacrifices shall give us today a chance to live a life of increasing, not diminishing, happiness. Through such efforts optimism may become "second nature", learned behavior; possibly, the greatest of all the gifts bestowed upon us.
What are we to do with this gift? Best to become grateful by acting gratefully, through living a precious life worthy of that previous sacrifice, and in turn teaching a new generation the ennobling tradition of giving thanks.

President Lincoln’s eloquent speech is a powerful lesson in humility, gratitude, and faith. It is useful to re-read it on occasions like this, in order to re-learn and renew its message:

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that this nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate… we cannot consecrate… we cannot hallow… this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us… that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

[The miracle of the internet: A tantalizing look at the actual, original draft(s) of the speech, can be found here]

Blind Faith Decapitates Madonna in French Church

France's churches are frequently the target of graphitti and vandalism. Sometimes the destruction is petty in scale, while other times, such as this time, it assumes a larger, more symbolic turn, as a medieval statue is decapitated by unknown vandals.

From the news site La Depeche [my translation]:

The break-in took place on the night of Sunday to Monday, in the basilica of Notre-Dame-de-Marceille at Limoux. The coat and the head of the virgin of Marceille were stolen. Only the Jesus that the black madonna carried in her left arm remained intact. According to first estimates, no other object had been stolen from the basilica that night.

What is it that the vandal thinks he is destroying, as he rips out the robe of a long-cherished statue, as he tears off Mary’s head, robbing the parishioners of her smile?
Does he think those who can have faith in God see that faith as a shield against evil, so that by destroying their hollow statue the vandal sees himself as destroying a hollow faith..?
Does he see those placing their faith in an unseen God as blind people stumbling in the dark, and that his act of destruction is an act to illuminate their world, freeing them from a “blind faith” in a divine goodness breathing life into an otherwise empty existence?
Does he think that only wordly repercussions may follow from his actions, denying even the remotest possibility that he may pay a price much more perpetual than the suffering he seeks for fellow human beings in this life?
Who, really, is the one with blind faith?

As I sat through Mass this Sunday I took the time to cast my eyes about my church, and imagined myself following a Liturgy in a much older church now decorated by a headless statue. What does such a sight do to the faith of those parishioners? What do the faithful look to in order to strengthen their faith, when violent acts such as these, or worse, make it so difficult to persist in continuing this most passionate of commitments?

Probably they affirm their faith through the same technique that works so well for us on this side of the world: the summoning of a sense of sincere gratitude.
Seeing hope in the future by clearly seeing the past.

When memory is properly exercised, when history is sincerely studied, then one can’t help but feel grateful for all the incalculable gifts and blessings that have come our way.
Ignoring the past is key to hiding from the future, for to remember even our own personal youth would beg us to recall a time and age when we didn't know everything there was to know, where we could never know all the kindnesses and sacrifices made on our behalf, the many times that we were watched over while we slept, blindly innocent of the scope of the good around us.

Easy for me to hope the parishioners facing a faceless Mary can renew their commitment to their faith; yet days like yesterday, a day of Thanksgiving in Canada, make it so much easier for us to assert belief in a positive future, as we take the time and make the effort to appreciate our blessed past.

Having a faith in one’s future can’t be classified as “blind”, surely, when such commitment is based on as strenuous an effort to continually see things as clearly as possible. It’s by anchoring oneself in the past, that the best estimates can be made for one’s future. If we’ve grown before, surely we may do so again. If we’ve been blessed before, why not presume the likelihood of being blessed again? History may not repeat itself in exact detail, but honesty demands we acknowledge that it does recycle itself in outline, in pattern. Gratitude for one’s past, affirmed through clear memory, is the best preparation for the soul to feel hopeful for the future; where else can such confidence come from, but from familiarity..?

It was not through any blindness that I was able, yesterday evening, to see the scope of the bounty of gifts that have come my way through my short life. It was with clear vision that I could see the scale of the homemade Thanksgiving Dinner that my wife and I shared with those valued customers whose appreciated patronage allows me to pay my bills.
My faith is not a wall between me and reality, as the faithless vandal might see it; it is a window, letting me truly savor all the Goodness that fills this world.

Too bad the vandals of this age can’t see what we see, trapped as they are within the cage of an eternal present tense, empty of past, empty of future... it is tempting to even pity them, for there are none so blind as those who will not see.