November 17, 2006

Thanksgiving Day Is Nearly Upon Us

It’s the annual celebration of one of our two big holidays that flow just a month apart. Thanksgiving Day is tomorrow which implies there is an object of one’s thanksgiving. But not everyone celebrates Thanksgiving anymore. Instead it has become “Turkey Day.”

I seem to hear it more and more; “Have a nice Turkey Day!” “Happy Turkey Day!”
Since when do we give millions the day off from work in honor of a fairly stupid bird whose reason for existence is to grace millions of tables as the main course two or three times a year?

Thanksgiving isn’t about gorging ourselves with the succulent meat of this flying bowling ball, accompanied by mashed potatoes, squash, cranberry sauce and the rest and it’s not the “kick off” to the annual festival of avarice and greed now known as the winter holidays.

Thanksgiving Day was supposed to be a time of “official thanks,” if you will, to God Almighty; specifically the God of the Bible, not some deity envisioned willy-nilly.

Rather it was an acknowledgement that the bounty of the harvest was attributable by the blessing of a God who took personal interest in the affairs of man including the mundane aspects of life like earning a living off the land.

Fortunately we have grown up as a civilization and we no longer need such superstitions to make us feel secure against elements of life we cannot control. (Please note the sarcasm…)

Since abandoning the childish fables of a mighty God who rescued people from the fate of hungry lions, rescued them out of prisons and pits and even assigned great sea creatures to swallow one recalcitrant sinner and spit him up on dry land, we have become a much more balanced and peaceful society haven’t we?

Playground bullies used to wash kids faces in the snow, now they blow them away with semi-automatic rifles. Divorce used to carry a stigma; it was something to be ashamed of and now it is the treatment du jour for an ailing or lack luster marriage.

Doctors used to only save lives. The same doctor who treats your flu now may be the same doctor who palliates you with morphine—in mercy of course—hastening your demise.

So, by all means, this Thanksgiving, pay homage to the bulging bird or do obeisance to the Creator of the world; it’s a free country; do what you want; but remember, there will be a day of reckoning—believe it or not.

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