Gobble Gobble

Happy Thanksgiving!!

I haven't put anything on the blog in a little while, so I thought I would take a couple minutes to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving.

I think there is a tendency in today's time for us to focus on all the bad things going on in our Country and the world, especially if you turn on the news for just five minutes. With an on-going war, terrorist attacks in India just yesterday, the economy, and all the crap that comes with any political campaign it's even more important to remember the important things in our lives and those responsible for them. Maybe its because I'm another year older, and I'm finally starting to see the value in those things around me, but I for one have never been more thankful for my wonderful wife (who baked homemade brownies and EGGNOG PIE!! (and if you know Mindy, thats a HUGE deal)), our two great kids, and all the gifts that have been given to us.


Which brings me to my next point. After 18 years of formal education, I have always thought that Thanksgiving was in recognition of a bunch of Pilgrims and Indians eating turkey and having a group hug. That was until I read the original proclomation for thanksgiving by President Lincoln in 1863. I've cut and pasted it below, and would invite you all to read it. If this is the first time you've seen it, it may suprise you, and I'm sure that you'll understand why we never read it in school.

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.

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In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

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Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well as the iron and coal as of our precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.
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No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

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It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the imposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the divine purpose, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity, and union.

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In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the city of Washington, this 3d day of October, A.D. 1863, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.
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Abraham Lincoln

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Unfortunatly, I am afraid that we have become so arrogant as a Country that we think we have created our fortunes on our own without any help. We are so afraid of offending another person, that in the end, we offend the only One that we should be afraid of offending.

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Holy cow! thats a lot of writing, anyway, if you stuck with me and made it this far - I hope that you all are able to spend today with your friends and family. Enjoy your turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes and have a very Happy Thanksgiving!!