The Great Forgetting of Thanksgiving

It is one of the strangest achievements of our modern world that we have managed to forget the most obvious thing about thanksgiving - namely, to whom we are giving it. We have performed what might be called a magnificent act of selective amnesia, remembering the turkey but forgetting the God who made both turkeys and hunger; remembering the feast but forgetting the Host; remembering to say "thank you" but carefully forgetting to whom we say it.

This is no small accomplishment. In fact, it takes rather more effort to forget God in thanksgiving than to remember Him. For a child naturally asks, when taught to say "thank you," to whom he is saying it. It requires years of careful miseducation to reach the point where we can be thankful for everything while thanking no one at all. We have mastered the curious art of being grateful to the void, of sending thank-you notes into empty space, of raising our glasses to toast an absence.

The pagans, whatever else might be said about them, never achieved such a feat of forgetfulness. When they were thankful for the harvest, they knew they were thanking some god of the harvest. When they were thankful for the sun, they thanked some god of the sun. They might have been wrong about which god to thank, but they at least remembered that thanksgiving requires a receiver. We moderns have outdone them by inventing a complete celebration of gratitude while carefully avoiding the embarrassing question of gratitude's object.

It is rather like celebrating a birthday party where everyone has agreed to pretend there is no birthday boy or girl. We hang the decorations, we bring the presents, we sing the song - but we stop carefully before we reach the name. "Happy Birthday to..." and then a polite cough and a change of subject. Or perhaps it is more like receiving a magnificent gift and spending all our time admiring the wrapping paper while steadfastly ignoring the card that tells us who sent it.

Our ancestors, who founded this particular feast day, would be rather puzzled by our performance. When they set aside time for thanksgiving, they knew exactly whom they were thanking. They were thanking God - not some vague spiritual force, not the universe, not Mother Nature, but the specific God who had preserved them through a terrible winter, who had taught them to plant corn through the assistance of their Native American neighbors, who had brought them safely across a perilous ocean to a new world.

They would be astonished to find that we have kept all the trappings of their feast while forgetting its central purpose. It is as if we had inherited a great cathedral and converted it into a shopping mall, keeping the soaring architecture but removing all reference to its original function. We gather, we feast, we express gratitude - but to whom? The question hangs in the air like an answered prayer, or rather, like a prayer we have forgotten how to pray.

The curious thing about this great forgetting is that it has not made us more rational, as its architects perhaps hoped it would. Instead, it has made us more superstitious. Unable to thank God for our blessings, we find ourselves thanking "luck" or "the universe" or that most vaporous of deities, "positive energy." We have not eliminated the need to give thanks; we have only eliminated the proper object of thanksgiving, leaving ourselves with a sort of gratitude in search of an address.

This is why modern thanksgiving often has about it a hollow ring, like a bell without a clapper. We go through the motions, we say the words, but something essential is missing. We have kept the form while forgetting the content, preserved the ritual while losing its meaning. We are like actors who have forgotten we are in a play, continuing to speak our lines without knowing why.

But perhaps this very hollowness might serve a purpose. Perhaps the empty space at the center of our thanksgiving might remind us of what should fill it. For nature, as they say, abhors a vacuum, and the human heart abhors an ungiven thanks. We cannot long continue in this state of grateful forgetfulness, this condition of throwing thank-you notes into the void.

The very fact that we still feel compelled to give thanks, even when we have forgotten to whom we give it, might serve as a signpost pointing back to the forgotten God. For if there is in us an instinct for gratitude - and there manifestly is - then surely this suggests a proper object of that gratitude. If we find in ourselves a need to say "thank you," then surely this implies someone to thank.

This Thanksgiving, then, might be the time to remember what we have forgotten. To recall that feasting requires a Host, that gratitude requires a Giver, that thanksgiving requires a God. We might remember that the very word "thanksgiving" contains within it not just the giving but the One to whom thanks are given. We might recall that all gifts come from somewhere, or rather, from Someone.

For in the end, we cannot truly be thankful for everything while thanking no one for anything. We cannot have gratitude without a proper object of gratitude any more than we can have love without a beloved or praise without one to praise. The very nature of thanksgiving demands both a giver and a receiver, both the one who thanks and the One who is thanked.

So let us end our magnificent feat of forgetfulness. Let us remember what we have tried so hard to forget. Let us acknowledge that behind every gift stands the Giver, behind every blessing the One who blesses, behind every cause for thanksgiving the God to whom all thanks are due. For only then will our thanksgiving be complete, only then will our gratitude find its proper home, only then will our feast become what it was always meant to be - not merely a celebration of good things, but a celebration of the good God who gives them.

-The Seeker's Quill