Sue Lani Madsen: Giving thanks for survival

The story of the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag sharing the first thanksgiving dinner has been a staple of American folklore for centuries, retold in each generation to highlight whatever served the purpose of the era. I’m as guilty as the next writer, having used it last week to illustrate the potential unintended consequences of welcoming refugees fleeing religious persecution.

History and the shared stories we tell about it are what define a country, a community and a family. My view of Thanksgiving is irreverently linked to a favorite family record album from 1961, “Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America – The Early Years.” In the lyrics to “Pilgrim’s Progress: Take an Indian to Lunch,” Mayor Pennypacker is running for re-election and breaks into song as he plans for the Rotary Club luncheon on Thursday:

Take an Indian to lunch – this week

Show him we’re a regular bunch – this week

Show him we’re as liberal as can be

Let him know he’s almost as good as we

Make a feathered friend feel fed – this week

Overlook the fact he’s red – this week

Let him share our Quaker Oats

‘Cause he’s useful when he votes

Take an Indian to lunch.

Listening to Stan Freberg gave me a lifelong cynicism about iconic history and identity politics, plus a love of satire. Understanding Freberg’s satire required digging into history.

Declaring a day of thanksgiving is not uniquely American. Rulers and elders across cultures have often called for a day of thanksgiving after surviving calamity or feeling particularly blessed by good fortune. Harvest festivals are among the oldest reasons to celebrate.

The holiday we call Thanksgiving is relatively new as a national observance, tied more closely to surviving a crisis than reaping a good harvest.

Presidents starting with George Washington have issued executive proclamations of thanksgiving that might or might not be observed on the same day and in the same way across the country. It wasn’t fixed in place by Congress as the fourth Thursday in November until 1941 as we inched closer to world war.

American Thanksgiving proclamations have always given thanks to God using typically Christian forms of address, like this one issued by President Harry Truman in 1946:

“At this season, when the year is drawing to a close, tradition suggests and our hearts require that we render humble devotion to Almighty God for the mercies bestowed upon us by His goodness.”

Although our nation has deep Christian roots and over 70 percent of Americans identify as Christian, our citizens practice a variety of faith traditions – Judaism is second at just under 2 percent, followed by less than 1 percent each of Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Baha’i, Zoroastrianism and other world religions.

Thanksgiving celebrations are found in every faith tradition. Each of these religions has formally come to terms with Thanksgiving’s Christian roots based on a shared sense of thankfulness to something spiritually larger than ourselves.

The only one that seems divided on the issue is Islam, which has competing fatwas (rulings on Islamic law) alternately condemning Thanksgiving as heretical for Muslims and acknowledging it as a nonthreatening secular holiday.

Rabbi Naftali Silberberg, director of the curriculum department at the Rohr Jewish Learning Institute, observed that “we Americans are a thankful lot. Our calendar is dotted with days when we express our gratitude to various individuals and entities.”

And although the Jewish harvest festival of Succoth might seem to be the analogous holiday for American Thanksgiving, Rabbi Tzvi Freeman, a senior editor at Chabad.org, proposes in his blog that Chanukah is a closer match. Both share a culturally embedded narrative about an arduous fight against religious persecution and a sense of divine providence interceding for freedom.

We have a day to thank veterans, mothers, fathers, presidents, even labor unions. It would be appropriate for Spokane Mayor David Condon to issue a proclamation for a day of thanksgiving after everyone has the power back on.

He could call it Linemen’s Day. Or if that’s not gender neutral enough for the hypersensitive, Pole Dancers Day. Praise God for electrical power and those who make it happen!