Thanksgiving 2020

 

The holiday that kicks-off the Holiday Season has arrived!

Elmer, my Turkey
Ready for the Holiday

Thanksgiving is here. The Day of the Turkey! The time to give thanks for our blessings. 

Living under the pandemic has changed our holiday celebration. We will adhere to the advice of the doctors and scientists by celebrating the holiday with family via the best electronics available. I expect to Zoom most of the day. 

This will not be out first solitary Thanksgiving, while I was serving in the Air Force we celebrated many Thanksgivings separated from extended family. I remember many decades ago Chris and I even celebrated Thanksgiving in a restaurant somewhere in the midsection of the country as we were driving from Denver to Upstate New York. And so this will not even be the first Thanksgiving where it is just the two of us. 

We are resilient. The sense of loss of traditions and the change that we are experiencing will not overshadow the holiday or prevent us from remembering the blessings that have been bestowed upon us, even during this pandemic. 

I searched for an appropriate Thanksgiving prayer and discovered the following. It is not an actual prayer that Abraham Lincoln spoke; however, as I understand, it is constructed based upon his thoughts and ideals and written by a Lincoln scholar. Nonetheless, it speaks to what is in my heart as I write this morning.

PRAYER FROM LINCOLN

AT THANKSGIVING

SO, we must think anew,

And act anew.

We must disenthrall ourselves.

We are not enemies,

But friends.

We must not be enemies.

We cannot separate.

There is no line, straight or crooked,

Upon which to divide.

We cannot escape history.

No personal significance, or insignificance,

Can spare one or another of us.

The mystic chords of memory

Will yet swell the chorus of union

To every living heart

And hearthstone,

And again touch

The better angels of our nature.

  Read the Spirit - Prayer from Abraham Lincoln at Thanksgiving

May you find peace on this holiday. 

-- Bob Doan, Elkridge, MD