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Many Voices, One Freedom: United in the 1st Amendment

March 19, 2024

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For many people today, Thanksgiving in America, the fourth Thursday of November, has become just another holiday to enjoy food and drink, a feast for secular gluttons and hedonists. This is unfortunate. Mark Twain says that once he began eating less, three small meals a day, his chronic indigestion disappeared. 

Ironically, rather than an exercise in excess, Thanksgiving can serve to remind us of how hard work complements the true meaning of well-earned leisure, for as long as we are willing to embrace a productive and healthy work ethic, the fruits of our labor will never vanish. 

I like to think of Thanksgiving as a symbolic day set aside for reflection on the miracle of life. That is ⏤ a day when we remember the importance of gratitude.

As an American holiday, Thanksgiving Day has always been well represented in the work of many writers. The act of giving thanks is an integral part of Western culture. Thanksgiving, the American holiday, is a day that owes its meaning and longevity to Christians.

The Virtue of Gratitude

Cicero, the Roman writer, found gratitude to be an important virtue because the opposite of gratitude is resentment. He wrote: “A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all the other virtues.” The Roman philosopher has a valid point. Goodwill is what the world needs most. When was the last time we witnessed an egomaniac or narcissist thank anyone for anything? A sense of entitlement naturally cancels the desire and need for gratitude. What can be more natural than envious people attributing another’s success, which has come from virtue and sacrifice, to chance?

The Bolivian philosopher, Guillermo Francovich (1901-1990), writes in his book El Cinismo that in the state of nature – in other words – what can be described as man’s primordial reality, man must learn to act and be responsible for oneself, and that necessity pays homage to the hierarchy of values. If we must make choices, he reminds us, we should embrace nobility rather than become victims of self-destructive base choices. The recognition and exercise of this quintessential human ability, we should give thanks for. Animals know no better. 

Consider what Epictetus, the Roman philosopher and freed slave, means when he writes that wise people do not grieve for the things they lack, rather, rejoice for what they have. This is a timeless truth. The American writer, E.P. Powell (1833-1915), had this in mind when he wrote: “Thanksgiving Day is a jewel, to set in the hearts of honest men; but be careful that you do not take the day, and leave out the gratitude.”   

Thanksgiving Day in America – what a noble and humble act it is to give thanks – especially when we recognize potential horrors that can be, but which are not.

Thanksgiving Day is about giving thanks to God for our share of good fortune, regardless of our limitations; we ought not to confuse this American national holiday with mere idleness, self-indulgent travel, and culinary indulgence.

The French Christian philosopher, Louis Lavelle (1883-1951), one of the founders of the ‘philosophy of spirit’ movement and writer of The Dilemma of Narcissus, reminds us of the peace of mind that comes from gratitude in his majestic book, The Meaning of Holiness: “One must be sadly lacking in interior to confuse peace of soul with idleness…the presence of God manifests itself in peace of mind and interior joy.”

We can learn much from thoughtful writers. For instance, short story writers are particularly adept at pointing out fundamental truths about the human psyche and values. One cannot go wrong with O. Henry (William Sydney Porter, 1862-1910). He points out that Thanksgiving is a life-affirming holiday that is “purely American.” 

Thanksgiving Day is an American holiday that teaches us humility and gratitude, for several reasons. One of these is that it enables prudent people to reap the fruits of honest work. For most people, Thanksgiving Day signals the hard-fought understanding that industriousness and toil, in any of its variegated forms, is always a blessing that we must be willing to embrace as the sacred fulfillment of our being. 

The joy of work becomes manifest when embraced wholeheartedly. In other words, we always get what we put into our understanding that human life – as the cliché goes – is not a bowl of cherries, rather resistance that enables us to become well-adjusted to human reality.

One normally does not expect Ayn Rand, the expatriated writer from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, writer of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, to have much to say about Thanksgiving Day in America. The woman was a virulent atheist. Yet her take on this American holiday is truly insightful. Rand has the following to say about Thanksgiving Day:

“The lavish meal is a symbol of the fact that abundant consumption is the reward of production.” Remember, Rand left the Soviet Union in 1926. Her family had their pharmacy confiscated by the tyrannous Stalinist regime. There is not much to thank Big Brother for, is there?

Reflection about the many things that Americans should be grateful for is a healthy practice that breeds long-lasting goodwill while fending off toxic resentment. When we catalog all the things that are right with the American Constitution, Thanksgiving Day should be celebrated every day of the year. 

MANY VOICES, ONE FREEDOM: UNITED IN THE 1ST AMENDMENT

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