by Rev. Eric Folkerth

Kessler Park Friends:

I send you this message on Thanksgiving Day, 2021.

We usually send you a full newsletter on Thursdays, and in keeping with that schedule, I’ve prewritten this for you to receive on Thanksgiving.

Let me be clear, I didn’t write it today. And, frankly, I’m hoping you don’t read it today either. I hope you’re getting a day of rest and gratitude with family or friends.

There are lots of reasons to be wary of the original founding myth of Thanksgiving that our nation reveres: That story of “Pilgrims and Indians” sharing a meal. 

There’s a lot of questions as to whether it ever happened, and our Native American friends quickly remind us that there are justice reasons to be wary of remembering this story and forgetting the rest of the history.

But there’s one bit of the myth that seems deeply important:

The ability to give thanks EVEN IN DIFFICULT TIMES.

That is what we are told happened during that allegedly first Thanksgiving. They’d survived a harsh season and came together to celebrate.

Again, the actual event might have never happened. But don’t miss the *meaning* of that story.

I think that’s why Abraham Lincoln issued that original Thanksgiving proclamation during the Civil War. He understood what that founding myth was trying to teach us: To be grateful even if it feels like the nation is being ripped apart.

That sounds all too familiar to us, doesn’t it?

Therefore, it might be good to recall Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation.

It’s pretty powerful:

“I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea 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. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.”

— Abraham Lincoln

Did you catch that?

Lincoln not only invited the nation to give thanks to God, but he also explicitly invited the nation to remember the many who, right then, had lost loved ones in “the lamentable civil strife.” (Civil War)

We have now lost more than 770,000 souls to Covid-19.

That is, for comparison, now officially more persons than our nation lost in the Civil War, on “both sides.”

I have a sense that this Thanksgiving will be sweet for many of us as we gather again with family for the first time in two years. If that is the case for you, then simply give thanks for that blessing and for the fact that you have all made it through this pandemic.

But it will also no doubt be bitter for many more. Some of you, or your family, might still be wary of gathering with family. Or, if you do, you might be grieving one of those souls lost to Covid. And finally, even within your families, some of you will navigate the political divisions that are tearing us apart.

Therefore, this Thanksgiving Day, I want you to know I am holding you in my prayers.

Whether you are alone, or with family/friends.

Whether you experience happy contentment with your family, or trying hard to not argue with those who think/believe differently.

And finally, I’m praying especially for all of us who have lost loved ones.

Lincoln was wise to suggest Thanksgiving to the nation during the Civil War, and we would do well to focus on the spiritual gift of gratitude both today and in coming months.

But, of course, Lincoln wasn’t the first to think of giving thanks in hard times. St. Paul challenged the Thessalonians to: “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

We Christians have been working on this ever since.

It’s a hard move, of course. But that’s what our faith in God allows us to do…to even give thanks in hard times. I tend to think it is only through faith that we are given the strength for such a challenging thing.

Perhaps the most direct scripture on this “move” is from the Prophet Habbukkuk who lived in a time of massive calamity and war.

And yet, the Prophet was able to say:

“Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines;
though the produce of the olive fails, and the fields yield no food;
though the flock is cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation.
God, the Lord, is my strength.”

May God continue to guide you through every moment of joy and every moment of suffering. May you find a way to embrace it all in gratitude and thanksgiving.

And wherever you are today, I pray God’s blessings on each and every one of you this special day.

Grace and Peace,

Eric Folkerth