A story of the Very First American Thanksgiving:
The very first Thanksgiving ever happened when the pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, and the American Natives and the Pilgrims came together for a feast of Turkeys and corn and weird, semi-edible objects floating in green Jell-O. Afterwards, the young pilgrims and natives played a game where they mostly just stood around, but would occasionally run or tackle each other for an oblong ball, while the older people slept off the meal on sofas or argued with one another about long-standing, unresolved family drama. Finally, the pilgrims packed up their leftover-laden tupperware containers and went back to their colony – both parties feeling bittersweet about not seeing one another until the next year’s colonization, and wondering why they worked all day to prepare a meal that only took about a half hour to eat. The day after, the pilgrims and natives cast off the togetherness of the day before, and waged bloody battle to get big-screen TVs, socks, and sacred tribal homelands at discounted prices.
A Moment of Silence
There is a moment each year, no matter where I am celebrating Thanksgiving, where everyone has filled their plates and the room grows quiet aside from the occasional sounds of forks clinking on china. Conversation slows, then breaks. People comment on the food or the weather, but there isn’t enough momentum for it to flow into a sustained discussion. I inevitably forget to grab enough napkins or a butter knife, and feel strangely clumsy and loud crossing the room to get them. Eventually the quiet eases as people begin their wider orbits around the room, gathering a few more bites of sweet potatoes or a final roll to sop up some extra cranberries. Finally, full bodies recoil back into chairs away from the empty dishes on the table, and newly uplifted eyes spark conversation back to life.
There are several reasons to look skeptically at the story-book account of early American Thanksgivings taught to school children, as there are several reasons to believe that our modern Thanksgiving practices have diverged from the true meaning of the holiday. In the quiet moment, though, there are powerful forces at work. People are together – people from different walks of life, different origins, even different universes (Republicans and Democrats?). And not only are they together, they are sharing food. For a society that has distanced ourselves from the connection of food with survival, this might not seem like a big deal. But feasts mean so much! They are a symbol of wealth and security, they are an acknowledgement of the equality of our basic human needs, and probably most of all, feasts are an acknowledgement that our prosperity is dependent on others. A seat at the table means that your hunger matters as much as mine, that what you contribute is important, and that we have faith together that our needs will continue to be met.
As the director, I sometimes get the privilege of speaking for the entire staff. This is from all of us, and I’ll say it now, just in case my mouth happens to be too full of mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving Day to tell you in person: I am grateful for our commonalities, for our interdependence, and for our shared vision of the future. Thank you for making a seat for us at the table.
Happy Thanksgiving!