Thanksgiving 2016

Thanksgiving 

TODAY IS THE DAY of my FAVORITE holiday, Thanksgiving ! For those that are close to me they know this day means a lot. 

This year I want to focus on the word 'thanksgiving'. At times we blow by things in life that we don't even realize we have anymore. From watching our sun and moon rise and fall as though the galaxy is breathing around us, to the miracle of life itself- seeds that make their journey across the earth , and the flora and fauna that inhabit it, making it plentiful. 

I am thankful for these things and of course I'm thankful for mankind that makes all else in between possible.

To my family and friends who continue to fill my life with so much love, I say 'thank you' to you!! You have helped create my life to be what it is today! 

Let's be THANKFUL.

The second piece is 'giving' . 

Our world is becoming a scarier place and one that we are sometimes not proud to live in, not proud to have created and certainly not proud to pass on. However, we need to remind ourselves that we can change and we can create and be co-authors. 

I'd like to leave this part to President Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving Speech. It reflects who we are as a nation and world and, just as he lived through a time of divide, he recognizes the importance of togetherness. 

 Washington, D.C.
October 3, 1863

By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

The year that is drawing towards 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 cannot 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 unequalled 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 theatre of military conflict; while that theatre 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 defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the 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 battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. 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. 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 at sea and those who are sojourning 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 interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes 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 Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

William H. Seward,
Secretary of State