Volunteering, good ol' Abe, and the ever-skeptic Twain

Today's been an interesting sort of day so far. Actually, for the last seven years or so I haven't been entirely sure what to make of Thanksgiving day. (Seven years meaning since I left home and started college.) Honestly, it's always been a little bit of a disappointment. Somehow I forget that Thanksgiving is not Christmas and therefore should not hold the same magic to it. Yet there's always build up, which then means that it has the propensity to fall flat. People spend time talking about the food, who's going where, who's making what, lots of planning and prepping, and then...You sit down and eat. With some people it may be more God-focused, while with others it's more food-focused with an acknowledgement that there is the tradition of giving thanks. But no matter where I've been I always leave the day thinking, "Oughten it to have been something more? A little more pomp? A little more of the celebratory feeling?

That's it! The feeling of a celebration! The last several years it's felt more obligatory then celebratory. But I think that got fixed this year. The people I planned to be with on Thanksgiving couldn't actually celebrate it until tomorrow, so my sister, brother-in-law, and I decided to volunteer with City Impact. A brilliant idea!

City Impact puts on this huge block party and there are about 600 volunteers who come from all over the Bay area. They put together hot meals which are then taken to the various SRO hotels (single room occupancy), they also serve two meals on location. Glide and St. Anthony's were also serving food, trying to reach those 35,000 in the six blocks of the Tenderloin. I honestly can't rightly express to you the...enjoyment there is in wholeheartedly saying "Happy thanksgiving!" to people you don't know, but know that they need at least a smile. I am aware that there may not be an life-changing impact in a smile or a single meal, but I think what I'm trying to get at is how heart-warming it is to see an interaction that expresses genuine well-wishing to another human being.

I have a few other reflections on the morning of volunteering but will save those until some other time perhaps. One last thing: one of the leader people today said something about how gratitude is not completely expressed in receiving but in giving. An interesting thought.

My conclusion: Volunteer on Thankgiving day! Best way to spend it.

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I read Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving Day proclamation for the first time today. Thought I'd share it with you:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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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Mark Twain has always been a favorite writer of mine for his wit, intelligence, and general skill of crafting a story. Sadly, he was not a believer (as far as I know) and interestingly enough was not afraid of sharing his disbelief/skepticism. Here are his (somewhat sobering) thoughts on Thanksgiving:

"Thanksgiving Day, a function which originated in New England two or three centuries ago when those people recognized that they really had something to be thankful for -- annually, not oftener -- if they had succeeded in exterminating their neighbors, the Indians, during the previous twelve months instead of getting exterminated by their neighbors, the Indians. Thanksgiving Day became a habit, for the reason that in the course of time, as the years drifted on, it was perceived that the exterminating had ceased to be mutual and was all on the white man's side, consequently on the Lord's side; hence it was proper to thank the Lord for it and extend the usual annual compliments."