Happy Thanksgiving! The Art of Being Thankful
“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.”
Excerpt from George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation, October 1789
A Familiar Story
It’s November 1620. For the last two months, a group of 102 passengers have been cramped aboard a small ship called the Mayflower. The passengers call themselves Separatists, with most migrating to exercise their faith freely in the New World. They make landfall near the tip of Cape Cod;, realizing that they are too far north and nowhere near where they want to be but unable to gather supplies from the bleak shoreline, they set sail again. After another month, they enter what is now Massachusetts Bay, and begin building their settlement at Plymouth.
December comes quickly, and the weather turns bitterly cold as the poorly-provisioned settlers are driven to stay in their ship, unable to build shelters before the first snow. By March 1621, more than half of the passengers had departed the Old World for the New are dead. Scurvy, contagious disease, and basic malnutrition have taken their toll on the settlers, leaving them even more destitute than before. Tattered and broken, they finally leave the confines of the Mayflower in early March to find provisions and build their settlement.
As they begin to work, a visitor arrives. He is a Native American of the Abenaki tribe. They are astonished as he greets them in English. He surveys the grim scene before him, seeing their tattered clothes, gaunt faces, and thin skin, and he then considers the grim reality of these poor, inexperienced people who believed they could survive in the harsh wilderness. He bids them farewell, and a few days later, returns with a man named Squanto. This man had been kidnapped by a sea captain and enslaved. He had learned English, escaped to London, and found transport back to his tribe.
Now, Squanto looks in shock at what he sees. He takes mercy on the settlers and shows them how to cultivate corn, take sap from maple trees, catch fish, and avoid dangers like poisonous plants and bad water. He introduces the settlers to the Wampanoag Tribe, and facilitates an alliance that would last for the next fifty years. Months pass. Relationships build. Crops are harvested. The once tired and broken settlers no longer have gaunt faces. They have strength, and because of the men who took mercy on them in their beginning days, they have hope.
In the fall of 1621, Governor William Bradford organizes a feast to celebrate the provision afforded to them by Almighty God. They invite Squanto and many members of the Wampanoag Tribe to a three-day feast. The group known as the Pilgrims break bread with the Native Americans who saved them. They shake hands and embrace one another. They lift their voices amongst the celebration to praise the Almighty Father for their life, their friends, their family, and their journey. This was the first Thanksgiving. Born in strife. Found from hardship. Forged by relationship. Bounded in time. Each year Americans celebrate Thanksgiving. The story of the Pilgrims is what we think of when we gather around the table, but there are more stories. In this episode, we will talk through two Thanksgiving experiences. Each teaches about the art of being thankful, even when merely the thought of gratitude seems blasphemous.
A Letter Home
In the First World War, the only flower that would grow in No Man’s Land was the red poppy. It grew on graves, in the blood-soaked mud, and in the trenches where bodies openly rotted in the afternoon sun. Lieutenant Colonel John McRae saw this and wrote a poem about it:
In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch, be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
As a result, the poppy became a symbol of beauty in midst of war and anguish. The men who experienced this carried with them the memories of the horror they saw. Despite these experiences, they still found things to be thankful for, both during and after the Great War. Whether it was a hot cup of tea, a tin of apple butter, or an impromptu cease-fire during the Christmas of 1914, when the men from both lines walked across the battlefield to embrace one another.
Below is an excerpt from a letter sent just after the war ended. This man had seen combat. He had heard the artillery. He had smelled death, seen horror, experienced the living nightmare of the trenches. Yet, that is not what he spoke of:
“In my little town we had a very nice service at 9:30 a.m. Then most of the men went to the big town Pont-a Musson where most of our troops are located. Several of our bands for music and field exercises were the features of the day. No turkey, cranberry sauce or cake but we were all thankful for what we had.
Very funny thing but I awoke this morning about 3:30 and had an early prayer (sic) in bed. Think I must have awoken praying over such a pleasant dream that I had. Since I don’ t want to be superstitious of dreams I am going to tell it to you, remembering that I have had dreams of many things that I have hoped for and obtatined (sic). I dreamed that I came home and found you with “big” little boy and a pet dog.
Well as yet, the cablegram has not reached me but I am expecting it by 1st Dec. at the latest. As your last letter left you so well, it has further strengthened by hopes that all has gone well with you. I certainly have prayed for the success of you both, and something has given that assurance.
I think that Mrs Kimbell will be alright as your nurse. I remember that she had a good name as one. Glad that all of the family are well. Regards to all, and a heart full of love for you and the “little one.”
For this soldier returning home, to be thankful at Thanksgiving had nothing to do with food. Comfort was still months away. Things were hard, not easy. Despite the terrible carnage he had seen, there was joy. There was a poppy in in carnage. Some bit of beauty that he could think about, and be thankful for, even if it seemed a world away.
A Failed Thanksgiving
Very few people have heard of the Battle of Hürtgen Forest. Starting in September 1944, it was the longest battle fought on German soil during the war and the longest single battle in the history of the United States Army. For nearly three months, men on both sides perished in the fires of humanity’s greatest war, and in the end, the United States suffered a serious defeat at the hands of their Nazi foes. American casualties numbered nearly ninety thousand lives lost. As Lieutenant General Jim Gavin, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, said the battle was “one of the most costly, most unproductive, and most ill-advised battles that our army has ever fought.”
By November, the battle had gotten so intense that it was taking days to even advance a single mile. It was during this time that word came up from Battalion headquarters about the need to celebrate Thanksgiving as a “morale boost” for the men. “Happy Thanksgiving,” the Staff Sargent said. “We’ve got a hot turkey dinner here for every man in the outfit,” First Lieutenant Paul Boesch took the call. “Are you guys nuts?”, he said. “It’s almost dark and my carrying parties have already made the trip up the hill with rations and water. I can’t send them up there again. Besides, they can’t feed a hot meal in the positions they’re in now. “Of course I want to see them get a hot meal. I want to see them get three hot meals a day and a dry bed every night and a babe to sleep with, but let’s save the turkey until they can pull back where they can enjoy it. Who the h**l knows it’s Thanksgiving except for some silly b*****d in the rear who gets hot meals anyway and just wants a change of diet?”
But his protests were futile. As ordered, he assembled a team to go back down the hill to fetch the turkey. As predicted, the Germans artillery pounded the GIs. Casualties began to pile up, and the artillery zeroed on the group carrying the hot food back up the hill, hitting the group “just as the turkey arrived”. When the brass at HQ heard about the debacle, their only words were, “We are sorry. We are very sorry.”
But not far from the location of the shelling where men, turkey, and stuffing were incinerated, another interaction had taken place weeks before. Among the many minefields around the forest, American GIs saw something they would never forget. In the middle of the mud, bodies, and ordinance of a German minefield, a lone German doctor cared for a dying American soldier. He had crawled from body to body, saving some, making the passing from this life to the next more comfortable for others. He toiled all night and into the next day before starting again with the same mission, one that never included an ask for recipients for a thank you. He died pulling an American out of that field.
Today, there is a stone monument dedicated by the veterans of the U.S. 4th division to the memory of a German doctor called Friedrich Lengfeld. When the Battle of the Bulge began the week before Christmas and the Allied cause reached its darkest hour since the invasion of Normandy, the Americans who manned the defensive line in the forests of Belgium and France would tell the story of a German doctor who gave his life for one of their own.
For the soldiers in the frozen forests of the Second World War, there was no food or comfort or peace. There was only life and death. Their brothers in arms were with them, holding the line together. Despite the reality of where they were and what they experienced, they found that life, their friends, and their hope of eventually going home, were all something for which to be very thankful.
Being Thankful
The story of Thanksgiving is not limited to the historical account of Pilgrims and Native Americans. It is not bound by modern arguments of what actually happened, nor is it limited by naysayers who, as with everything, seek to revise history to bolster their personal ideologies. The history of Thanksgiving is ongoing, constantly moving, and as long as people gather together and remember all the things they are thankful for—at least once a year—then its history will continue to live on.
It lived on in men returning home from an unimaginable World War.
It lived on in the soldiers of the Battle of Hürtgen Forest who remembered and impossible ally in the middle of a fruitless battle.
It lives on in the individual who looks to heaven with a thankfulness for the provision and peace, even if it’s only for a moment.
It lives on in you.
The art of thankfulness is an intentional one. It requires the practice to battle the sense of entitlement that we all have. It calls into question the covetous behaviors forged in almost two decades of social media, ignores the political ideologies purported in 24-hour cable news cycles, and requires us to challenge our own deficiencies. Its not glamorous. Its not spectacular by today’s standards. It is realizing what we have—no matter how small—and being thankful for it. It is the helping hand when you’re starving in a New World, seeing a flower in No Man’s Land, remembering an unlikely ally in the middle of devastation, and—speaking from experience— holding a single can of food in an empty house.
So be thankful.
Be thankful if you are saved by faith.
Be thankful for your family.
Be thankful for your friends.
Be thankful for your health.
And if you are in a place in your life where you feel like you have none of these things, be thankful to know that you’re wrong.
At 15-Minute History, we’re thankful for you.
From all of us here, we wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving. See you on Monday.
