Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians shared an autumn harvest in 1621 that is acknowledged today as one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies.
For two centuries thereafter, days of thanksgiving were celebrated by individual colonies and states. It wasn’t until 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, that perhaps our greatest leader, President Abraham Lincoln, proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held each November.
That day this year is Nov. 22.
It is a time to think about the good things in our lives and to thank God for the blessings received daily even if one doesn’t believe in a creator.
It’s a day devoted, too, to family. We are reminded of one definition of family that says home is the place where you go, and the door will always be open. We are a nation of families joined in the belief that hard work, devotion to higher principles, country and one another gives everyone the chance to be independent.
We are a nation of diversity, more so than that first thanksgiving celebration 391 years ago. Our skins are tinged with the colors of an artist’s palette — white, black, brown, red and yellow — representing the many continents we came from either as free men and women, or as slaves, or indentured servants, mostly in search of a better life.
Americans are from every country on the planet and many passed through Ellis Island to find homes from New York and Massachusetts, to the Midwest, eventually as far west as California and north as the Dakotas and south to Texas. The 315 million of us who have filled the land have a duty to those yet to be born to give it to them unspoiled.
So many of our parents and grandparents saw the words through teary eyes of the “mighty woman with a torch” — the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor — as they started life in a young nation.
How can anyone not believe in a great future for a nation which still proclaims: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free ... Send these, the homeless, tempest-lost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Thanksgiving is about much more than the turkey, sweet potatoes, macaroni, cranberries and pumpkin pie. It is about the bounty of the land “from sea to shining sea” and a celebration of life.
America is the breadbasket of the world. Without the golden harvest of wheat, corn and oats from our Great Plains and our generosity, millions more would starve to death each year in the world.
We are a nation of people, too that are positive in the deepest recesses of our souls.
It is perhaps our greatest strength — that we believe in ourselves, each other and we can do just about anything when we work together in the spirit of love. How many of us have been in a battlefield and gone back for a fallen comrade or ran into a burning home to save a child? We are a nation of heroes.
We have defeated Communism, the Third Reich and, in 1969, landed an American on the moon to remind mankind our ultimate destiny is to once again visit the stars, the stuff of which we are made.
So no matter your dreams, nationality, native language, level of ability or intelligence, we are one people today who can raise our eyes heavenward and thank God we live in a nation of abundance, tolerance, diversity and wealth.
There are those still in need, but we are hopeful our political leaders and our neighbors will learn to share and provide as they did in times of distress in the past. Look around you today and see the blessings of America, and then take a moment and say a prayer of thanksgiving, for we are a blessed people living in a blessed land.