Last year several folks happily greeted me with “Happy Turkey Day!” I cringed each time. The act of eating a large bird has replaced the giving of thanks. Feasting has replaced gratitude. It seems that this new phrase is becoming more popular, albeit empty of any value. Sort of like the “have a nice day” bumper stickers, only worse. I hope nobody gives me that inane “turkey day” greeting this year, because I fear I will reply with something less-than-thankful. Don’t get me wrong, I do like turkey. I just don’t like the phrase.
Why aren’t many Americans thankful? What is wrong with thanking God for His mercy and generosity? Are we hard-hearted, or have we been programmed by the media and secular society to be unthankful. I believe this lack of gratitude begins in our public schools. When I was a kid, there were pageants with Pilgrims kneeling in thankful prayer. Our history books told us that President Washington declared that our nation would “set aside a day to thank God for His wonderful Providence”. Squanto, the Christian American Indian was prominent in his role of saving the Pilgrims’ lives. Now, even the reason for Thanksgiving is omitted. Faith in God is rarely mentioned. It is not politically correct to be thankful. And some school teachers erroneously believe that they may not teach factual history if that fact includes our forefathers’ deep faith and love for God.
I like my minister’s sermons. He is smart, eloquent, fearless and truthful. One day he told us not only to be thankful to God, but that we must live in a constant state of thankfulness. This is not only good theology, but it is also good psychology. The human heart cannot hold ‘thankfulness’ and ‘anger’ at the same time. It cannot hold ‘thankfulness’ and ‘fear’ at the same time. It cannot hold ‘thankfulness’ and ‘depression’ at the same time. In fact, the human heart can be nothing but joyful, if it remains in thankfulness. Try it. I have, and I find that every negative thought and feeling leaves me during my times of thankfulness. Every night at bedtime, my wife and I write in our journals three things for which we’re thankful that day.
Our Founders also gave us a Constitutional framework for laws, and a Bill of Rights which tells us that since God gave us these Rights, the government can not take them away. The government can neither give, nor take rights from us. Such a basic concept, but so misunderstood by citizens and oppressors alike. When Benjamin Franklin was walking out of the Constitutional Convention after having finished our Constitution, he was asked: “What kind of government have you given us sir?”
“A Republic, if you can keep it!”
Somehow, America is disintegrating into a Democracy. It’s not that we weren’t warned. Alexander Hamilton said, “We are a Republican Government. Real liberty is never found in despotism or in the extremes of Democracy.”
Samuel Adams warned: “Remember, Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy that did not commit suicide!”
James Madison, author of the U.S. Constitution wrote: …democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention, have even been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property, and have in general been as short in their lives as the have been violent in their deaths.”
Supreme Court Chief Justice (1801-1835) John Marshall said “between a balanced Republic and a Democracy is like that between order and chaos.”
At this time of Thanksgiving, let’s thank God that our Founders gave us a Republic. It is up to us to keep it.
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© 2008 by George V. Caylor. All rights reserved.
The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left.
(Ecclesiastes 10:2)
