Thanksgiving (in the US, 4th Thursday in November) is a harvest festival in the western world, offering thanks to God for material and spiritual possessions. Even though I believe that we always need to be thankful, I like setting a day aside annually for reflecting on all of our blessings. It is so easy for us to take things for granted. Here is a nice Thanksgiving day prayer from today's newspaper.
Oh, Heavenly Father,
We thank thee for food and remember the hungry.
We thank thee for health and remember the sick.
We thank thee for freedom and remember the enslaved.
May these remembrances stir us to service,
That thy gifts to us may be used for others. Amen.
This Thanksgiving, we need to keep victims of atrocious Mumbai blasts in our prayers.
Folks in the US celebrate Thanksgiving by eating (a lot of) Turkey. During Thanksgiving last year, an estimated 46 millions Turkeys were consumed in the US (~ one fifth of the annual consumption)!
For the past two decades or so, US presidents have been "pardoning" a Turkey (or two) during Thanksgiving - means a pardoned Turkey won't be killed and consumed. I find the word "pardoning" odd, in this context. The word "pardon" indicates some wrong doing. What did these birds do wrong, other than being wrong species, in the wrong place, at the wrong time?! If anything, I think we* are the ones who should "beg pardon" from these Turkeys for killing them en masse.
* I am saying "we" in general sense. I am a staunch vegetarian, who is not opposed to others eating meat.
1 comment:
And to think that Ben Franklin wanted the turkey as the National Bird ;-)
From http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/turkey/history.html:
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Ben Franklin thought the North American wild turkey should be the national bird. Of course, the turkey of his day was nothing like the domesticated descendants we know today. The wild turkey of Ben Franklin's day was a brightly plumed, cunning bird of flight.
Unlike eagles, turkeys live in flocks. Imagine seeing a flock of birds as large as turkeys flying across the sky. It must have been a wondrous sight. Wild turkeys have longer necks and legs as well as smaller breasts than turkeys bred for the table. The true American turkey was "wild and wary to the point of genius," said author G. T. Klein.
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