BEING THANKFUL, BUT TO WHOM?

We call Thanksgiving our most American holiday, and that it is. But here's a question between turkey breast and pumpkin pie. To whom are we so thankful? It's not the Puritan's good friend Massasoit, for that relationship soured...it's not Mother Nature, for she takes as well as gives...and it's certainly not the turkey who takes serious umbrage at being sliced up for your table. So who then...?

Well now -- might it be the God those Puritans so honored for their safe landing, safe crops, and safe harvest? With all due respect to today's atheists and constitutionalists, the Big Guy In The Sky was indeed the one to whom our early fathers gave thanks that autumn of 1621. Now nearly 400 years later our collective memories seem to have slipped off that powerful point.

Ahh, but wait, I can hear the rebuttal now. We have grown since then. Unlike those primitive Puritans we are far too enlightened to be lifting our cranberries in deference to something we can neither see nor hear nor test! And so it is that Thanksgivings -- even like Christmas and Easter -- have been neutered of their denominational religiosity.

The rejection of the denominational I can understand; the rejection of the religiosity, I have some trouble with. I'm reminded of the Dennis The Menace comic strip in which Dennis is saying to little Joey, "I can explain this to you, Joey, but the understanding part is up to you!"

Is it possible that America's relentless fascination with vampires, witches, ETs, and other supernatural creatures betrays a hint and a hunger for our lost religiosity...? As larger and larger swatches of the population place themselves in the none-of-the-above categories for Religion, do they sometimes sense that "none" is an empty place to live in...? To grow in....?

Today's sophisticated secular scientists and atheists and even agnostics can find some serious intellectual satisfaction in freeing themselves of old Medieval ghosts and ghouls. As an enlightened people, we also tend to look down on the rabid masses of Middle Eastern zealots willing to blow themselves up for their God. Granted, it's been a long maturing time since believers stood willingly in dens of Roman lions. On the other hand, it's been a long meandering time since even believers here felt any passion to "die for their God."

My head tells me this is perfectly reasonable and sensible. But my heart sometimes whispers a nagging question: If there is nothing so great as to die for, does this make my life somehow less to live for...? I can't help myself. I'll be thinking that as I enjoy another lovely -- but often aimless -- holiday.