Prayer Shopping by Candice Watters on 11/25/2009 at 1:34 PM

Wednesday's USA Today asks what you plan to say when you pray over your Thanksgiving feast tomorrow. In case you don't have any good ideas, columnist Cathy Lynn Grossman offers some ideas: multiple prayer websites and Beliefnet's Prayer Plain & Simple blog. Even the Huffington Post is getting in on the action with an agenda-setting offering from Children's Defense Fund President Marian Wright Edelman.

The article, "Do You Have a Special Thanksgiving Prayer," is a reminder that we live in a pluralistic society that often forgets what Thanksgiving is for. It's a holiday of remembrance. Not just remembering all our material wealth, or as one children's book says, "being Thankful for Thanksgiving," but for remembering a specific band of pioneers; adventurous Christians who braved unthinkable hardship (including freezing and starving to death) for a shot at a fresh start in a land without religious restrictions or persecution. Thanksgiving — the real holiday — is for giving thanks to the God who spared the Pilgrims from obliteration by sending a native, Tisquantum, to teach them how to survive in their new land.

If you've absorbed enough of the culture's thinking (and disdain) for this real part of our history, Focus on the Family has a Radio Theater production that tells the whole story from "Squanto's" perspective. An added bonus: you can listen to a portion of "The Legend of Squanto" today and tomorrow for free on the Focus broadcast.

Listening to it each year is one of our favorite parts of the celebration. And at the end of his tale — about being stolen from his tribe by English slave traders, only to return years later to find his people completely wiped out by disease — listeners are moved to prayers of thanksgiving. It's undeniable that the Sovereign God had (and has) His hand on the events of history. He is able to redeem even the most evil of circumstances. The only appropriate response is prayer.

If you're wondering what to pray, look to the One we pray to. He's already told us what to say.

Prayer Shopping by Candice Watters on 11/25/2009 at 1:34 PM

Wednesday's USA Today asks what you plan to say when you pray over your Thanksgiving feast tomorrow. In case you don't have any good ideas, columnist Cathy Lynn Grossman offers some ideas: multiple prayer websites and Beliefnet's Prayer Plain & Simple blog. Even the Huffington Post is getting in on the action with an agenda-setting offering from Children's Defense Fund President Marian Wright Edelman.

The article, "Do You Have a Special Thanksgiving Prayer," is a reminder that we live in a pluralistic society that often forgets what Thanksgiving is for. It's a holiday of remembrance. Not just remembering all our material wealth, or as one children's book says, "being Thankful for Thanksgiving," but for remembering a specific band of pioneers; adventurous Christians who braved unthinkable hardship (including freezing and starving to death) for a shot at a fresh start in a land without religious restrictions or persecution. Thanksgiving — the real holiday — is for giving thanks to the God who spared the Pilgrims from obliteration by sending a native, Tisquantum, to teach them how to survive in their new land.

If you've absorbed enough of the culture's thinking (and disdain) for this real part of our history, Focus on the Family has a Radio Theater production that tells the whole story from "Squanto's" perspective. An added bonus: you can listen to a portion of "The Legend of Squanto" today and tomorrow for free on the Focus broadcast.

Listening to it each year is one of our favorite parts of the celebration. And at the end of his tale — about being stolen from his tribe by English slave traders, only to return years later to find his people completely wiped out by disease — listeners are moved to prayers of thanksgiving. It's undeniable that the Sovereign God had (and has) His hand on the events of history. He is able to redeem even the most evil of circumstances. The only appropriate response is prayer.

If you're wondering what to pray, look to the One we pray to. He's already told us what to say.

Comments

[1. twilley said the following at 5:57 AM on Nov 26:]

1

I think part of the reason some people feel disdain for the holiday is that it is usually talked about in general terms--in grade school you learn some fuzzy story about how the white man and Native people learned to live together for a time, which anyone with eyes can see was a drop in the bucket compared to the wholesale genocide and land grab on which America is founded. I am glad you are advocating specificity.

Because some of those white people who came here, some of them did have good intentions, and some of them were noble. Some of them were money hungry, and some were land-hungry, or power-hungry, or tried to destroy native religions and traditions in order to force their own ideals on the people. But some worked for peace with the native people of this country. Some of them learned native languages and customs, and treated the native people like humans, although most did not. For me the holiday is a reminder of my place in history, a reminder of remembrance of both the widespread evil and the faint glimmers of good, and a time to say thank you for the places I have to make peace in my world today. I realize that although I cannot correct the evils of the past, I have a chance daily to be a person of peace and gratefulness.

I did, however, find the Boundless article you linked to dismissive of Nathan Philips's protest of the holiday. If I would meet that man, I would ask him to tell me his story.

What I believe he was protesting is the way that the Native American experience is erased from the white person's historical knowledge. Just this lack of specificity you yourself are protesting.

[1. twilley said the following at 5:57 AM on Nov 26:]

1

I think part of the reason some people feel disdain for the holiday is that it is usually talked about in general terms--in grade school you learn some fuzzy story about how the white man and Native people learned to live together for a time, which anyone with eyes can see was a drop in the bucket compared to the wholesale genocide and land grab on which America is founded. I am glad you are advocating specificity.

Because some of those white people who came here, some of them did have good intentions, and some of them were noble. Some of them were money hungry, and some were land-hungry, or power-hungry, or tried to destroy native religions and traditions in order to force their own ideals on the people. But some worked for peace with the native people of this country. Some of them learned native languages and customs, and treated the native people like humans, although most did not. For me the holiday is a reminder of my place in history, a reminder of remembrance of both the widespread evil and the faint glimmers of good, and a time to say thank you for the places I have to make peace in my world today. I realize that although I cannot correct the evils of the past, I have a chance daily to be a person of peace and gratefulness.

I did, however, find the Boundless article you linked to dismissive of Nathan Philips's protest of the holiday. If I would meet that man, I would ask him to tell me his story.

What I believe he was protesting is the way that the Native American experience is erased from the white person's historical knowledge. Just this lack of specificity you yourself are protesting.