How fitting to set aside a day each year to give thanks and pay attention to the fruits of the earth; perhaps this is the one lasting legacy of the indigenous people who loved this land. Of course they gave thanks daily to the earth and the water and the sun and the air that make all life as we know it possible
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And so, after teaching the hapless Pilgrims to plant and harvest corn (the seeds they’d brought from the old world would not take hold in the soil of the new and thus they nearly starved), Massasoit invited the Pilgrims to join the Wampanoag’s annual harvest ceremony (Judith Ness, on Native American History).
And while we faithfully continue this tradition, Thanksgiving has become just a springboard to a frenzied shopping season, with some stores apparently set to open at midnight. This echoes the words of Arnold Toynbee:
“My observation of the living religions of eastern Asia, and my book knowledge of the extinguished Greek and Roman religion, have made me aware of a disturbing truth: that monotheism, as enunciated in the Book of Genesis, has removed the age-old restraint that was once placed on man’s greed by his awe. Man’s greedy impulse to exploit nature used to be held in check by his pious worship of nature.”
Thus Thanksgiving Day is the epitome of the difference between two human ways of being in the world: the sustainable and the unsustainable.
We are at the turning point between protecting life on this planet or committing suicide-by-greed. And Black Friday is aptly named; it’s a dark day indeed in our process of accepting the limitation of our natural resources.
So for the last ten years, on the day after Thanksgiving, I have participated in the National Buy Nothing Day. It’s my small way of saying no to the insanity of our consumerist culture, and, while a mere handful of people have done likewise for some twenty years now, this year the Occupy Wall Street Movement has picked it up! (click here)
Is this the year to dare to HOPE that consciousness and conscience are re-emerging?
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