Today is thanksgiving day

I’ve waited for this day for a really long time. Maybe since around May when I quit my sales job. But, probably longer than that. There was a time when I loved to write so much that I always had an idea ready. Ideas, lots of little notes that scribbled themselves about places, persons, feelings, hopes, and desires. I’m very thankful to bring myself to words again. It has been a while.

Today is a national holiday, a holiday I’ve always been at odds with. I knew from the third grade that the mystical story of native peoples and colonizers was a myth. I had no proof though. A little digging drove me to this wonderful article titled “The Myths of the Thanksgiving Story and the Lasting Damage They Imbue” and felt compelled to find Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation.

Lincoln was not the author of the proclamation according to Abraham Lincoln online. It was written by Secretary of State William Seward. Which makes a lot of sense because I couldn’t find a good article on Abraham Lincoln’s thoughts on the Providence of God. I found a book, but didn’t get to check it out before the Seminary closed for break. The book talks about Lincoln’s troubles with God.

How could a man who has troubles with God write such a wonderful proclamation about the providence of God?

I asked myself before turning the door and heading to sleep last night. He didn’t. I’ll go back and look into William’s Seward’s thoughts on the Providence of God later. The importance of this search is what I’d like to pursue further, that is the theology of public policy in the United States. I started this side project with a bit of Leviticus and issues regarding women and their menstrual cycles in public policy. I’m continuing with Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is a product of trauma. I’m borrowing that statement from Dr. Cuellar, the most amazing Hebrew professor in the entire state of Texas. Anyway, the trauma that my cousin native peoples suffered at the English settler’s hands: that is the trauma I’m speaking of. This trauma gets masked with giant turkeys that are only bred to die. Literally, these turkeys are without wit, bred to be giant and im-proportionate bodies.

Animal cruelty aside, Thanksgiving is a day to be thankful that indeed the universe provides. God provides. God’s actions in this world is something to be thankful for. Our human actions in this world is something to be thankful for. I know that this holiday creates a lot of drama for a lot of us. I could bore you with details of my childhood and traumatic Thanksgivings, but that’s not very thankful sounding.

I want us to be very thankful for this day. I want us to be thankful for each other. Thankful for those we treasure so much to spend the day with them, and for those who we can’t stand and still put our differences aside for a meal. Thankfulness is a byproduct of love. I want us to always choose love.

Happy thanksgiving, you beautiful person.