It
will be a Thanksgiving like no
other. Over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house is off
the table for many of due to soaring Coronavirus
infection rates, deaths,
expanded mitigation rules, and desperate pleas. Many of us will be hunkered down with our immediate
family or limited bubble. Others will be locked down alone in dorm rooms,
nursing homes, and apartments. Some will even be sequestered in basements,
garages, and single bedrooms in their own homes
expecting only a plate to be left by
the door. For most of us the y’all come family, friends, and lonely strays feast around a groaning
table is this year a super spreader
event that just might kill Grandma.
So
I am taking a pass this year on my most
requested annual holiday blog entry,
Murfin’s
Thanksgiving Rules which was written for just such a sprawling gathering in mind. Hopefully we can dust it off and haul it
out again next year.
Of
course too many of us are ignoring
the tearful pleas of exhausted nurses, the gloomy prognostications of Dr. Fauci trooping legions of public health
officials, and the nagging of governors and mayors. Some of those folks
are motivated by Trumpian fake news syndrome, you-can’t-tell-me-what-to-ism,
and take-that-libtards defiance. But most of those crowding airports and bus
terminals, jamming highways, and
showing up at home, where ever that
is are simply pandemic burnt out and
desperate for the embrace of loved ones whatever the risk.
Social media, naturally, has broken out shaming and smearing those who have made different choices than our own. It echoes the relentless social and political divides among us, but is also a new twist on Thanksgiving controversies. More on those in a bit.
Despite this, the passion on all sides shows just how important today is for almost all of us. it is our only national feast day, something else common to most cultures. Here we have no other common feat, accessible to all unless
you count burgers and brats on the grill on Memorial Day. Members of
the many religious groups that
populate our country may have their particular feasts—Christmas and Easter, the Passover Seder, Eid ul-Fitr, Diwali for example—but only Thanksgiving
allows us all to gather around one table and is largely devoid of the chest-thumping jingoism connected to other
Federal Holidays.
For generations it has brought us together like
no other occasion and has often encouraged our greatest virtues—generosity,
acceptance of our differences, our love not only of family but
our communities, and fostered a
sense of gratitude for what we have
even in the most trying of times.
This year many of us feel what Thanksgiving represents even more deeply.
And so do those over yonder who don’t agree with you about much of anything.
Of course Thanksgiving has been fraught with controversy in recent years. For years Native American protests that the holiday represents European settler colonialism, American racism, cultural erasure, and actual genocide have begun to register with many of the rest of the current inhabitants of this country. It is hard to deny that our First Nations, as the Canadians call their aboriginal peoples, have an excellent point. The people we call Pilgrims represented a tip of the spear of a virtual invasion. Despite their reliance on the wisdom and assistance of the natives to survive their first brutal year at Plymouth and the shared harvest feast they reportedly had, in less than a generation the settlers were engaged in brutal warfare to annihilate or displace their former neighbors.
Growing
numbers joined in a boycott of the
holiday. Others, bowing to family pressure showed
up to dinner armed with arguments
that the whole affair is a racist
travesty. Next to those who tried
and inflict their own brand of religion on a typically diverse American family or brought
their political chips-on-the-shoulders
to the table these folks were the cause of an epidemic of eye-rolling, groans, and
occasional full blown family drama.
As
if that weren’t enough, there seemed to be no end of other reasons to hate Thanksgiving—the ecological damage of factory farming, the ethical and health horrors of carnivorism, gluttony in
the face of a starving world, wanton
consumerism in the launch of the holiday
shopping season, and the brutal enjoyment of men hurtling
themselves at each other in a modern re-creation
of the Roman gladiator spectacles.
Whew! And if all that wasn’t enough, we should not gloat in the embrace of our families and friends because too many
are alone.
Now there is more than a kernel of truth to all of these criticisms. And there is
nothing wrong with taking time at the holiday to consider them—and to consider
how we can all do and be better.
On the other hand, there is much to admire in Thanksgiving. First, it
is, after all at its heart, a harvest
festival. Virtually every culture
that has been dependent on agriculture marked the critical completion of the harvest, which staved off starvation for another year, with some
sort of festival. Just because we are Americans, doesn’t mean that we don’t deserve a festival,
too.
A discussion
of those divisions, an explanation
on how to separate the Pilgrim First Thanksgiving myth from
our celebration, and a history of our observances can be found
in full here if you are interested.
Buy maybe our physical separations this year will
let those particular controversies slide, if only for a year. Our need for each other may just be enough to
bring us together even if it is only on Zoom.
Whatever your circumstances you are welcome to share a prayer or meditation I devised a while back for a typically diverse family gathering. I found myself asked to say grace at a typical extended family Thanksgiving. Around the table were Catholics ardent and lapsed, liberal Protestants, Jews (mostly secular), a practicing Buddhist, and unchurched secularists. And I, of course, was a Unitarian Universalist with Humanist leanings. To be inclusive, to whom should I address a prayer? What deity, if any, should I invoke? Should I lead with a Chinese menu of options—pick a god from column A and a spirit from column B?
This is what I came up with. You may find it useful—or not. Feel free to use it if it fits. Or adapt
it to your needs and circumstances.
No pressure.
A Thanksgiving Prayer for Those Who Don’t Pray
Thanks for the hands.
All of them.
That dug
and scratched,
reaped and
loaded,
milled and
butchered,
baked and
cooked,
served and
scrubbed.
The cracked,
the
bleeding,
the
blistered hands.
The hands that
hewed and smelted,
sawed and
hammered,
wove and
sewed,
put
together and took apart.
The calloused,
the greasy,
the
grimy hands.
The hands that
wrote and
painted,
plucked and
keyed
carved and
created.
The graceful,
the supple,
the
nimble hands.
The hands that
caressed
and fondled,
stroked and
petted,
held and
are held,
grasped and
gave,
played and
prayed.
The warm,
the soft,
the
forgiving hands.
And today bless even the hands that
shoved and
scourged,
slapped and
smote,
bound and
chained us.
The harsh,
the
hateful,
the
heavy hands.
Today they cannot still our hands
from their
pleasure and their duty.
The void of anger they create,
our hands
fill with love.
The gentle,
the
clasping,
the
reaching hands.
—Patrick Murfin
