[Sca-cooks] Thanksgiving Thoughts, was: New Thanksgiving Cookbook

[kingstaste at mindspring.com]

Johnnae wrote:
Actually I suppose those that live in Texas might support the following:
http://www.new-life.net/thanks01.htm



That is a really interesting site.  Once you skim off his obvious biases, he
has a lot of documents cited that are really good to read.

It does bring up a question for me, though.  I have to wonder about
"thanksgiving" services as they occurred in pre-colonial times.  This fellow
(Denis Rupert) discusses several instances where first
explorers/conquistadors and then later colonists call for observances of
solemn thanksgiving services.  He says "The first recorded Christian
thanksgiving in America occurred in Texas on May 23, 1541 when Spanish
explorer, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, and his men held a service of
thanksgiving after finding food, water, and pasture for their animals in the
Panhandle."  Is there a particular Christian ceremony for thanksgiving that
pre-dates this spontaneous offering of thanks in 16th century Texas?  Is a
service for giving thanks part of the usual litany?  (Having left 'The
Church' several years ago, I am not up on the finer points of the practice.)
I get the impression that the early pilgrims thought of it more as a fast
than a feast, the feasting being added in once harvests became bountiful.

I am wondering if there might have been any instances in period in Christian
Europe where a Thanksgiving Service and then perhaps Feast might have been
held - most likely as a one-off situation.  Surely they called for worship
services at the end of successful military campaigns?  Relieved villagers
after the dragon was slain?  I'll look through my holiday lists to see what
I can find about harvest festivals, specifically as they are realted to
giving thanks.
Food for thought, as it were ;)
Christianna


Favorite quote from the site:
  "The Rev. Benjamin Arnett was a prominent African American cleric in the
Ohio AME Church. He preached a Thanksgiving sermon during the centennial of
our nation on November 30, 1876.

[...]

Let us be encouraged in our work, for we have found the moccasin track of
Righteousness all along the shore of the stream of life, constantly
advancing holding humanity with a firm hand. We have seen it 'through' all
the confusion of rising and falling States, of battle, siege and slaughter,
of victory and defeat; through the varying fortunes and ultimate extinctions
of Monarchies, Republics and Empires; through barbaric irruption and
desolation, feudal isolation, spiritual supremacy, the heroic rush and
conflict of the Cross and Crescent; amid the busy hum of industry, through
the marts of trade and behind the gliding keels of commerce.

And in America, the battle-field of modern thought, we can trace the
foot-prints of the one and the tracks of the other. So let us use all of our
available forces, and especially our young men, and throw them into the
conflict of the Right against the Wrong."