Alternative version for non-family gatherings
This ceremony option was created by Christopher B. Nelson, President of St. John's College in Annapolis, MD. Dr. Nelson designed it by selecting a number of the sidebar commentaries from the original 2001 "We the People Give Thanks"booklet and assembling them into a ceremony ideal for non-family Thanksgiving gatherings. We are grateful to him for his creativity and his willingness to share this version with others.
Chris and his family host a diverse gathering from the St. John's community in their home every year at Thanksgiving.
Leader: Welcome to our Thanksgiving dinner. Most of us gathered here do not have other family members in the room, though we are all thinking of them and of other Thanksgiving celebrations we have shared with them in the past.
While Thanksgiving is usually celebrated with family, it is, above all other days in the year, one which Americans share with their friends and neighbors, with those whose families are too many miles away, with those from other countries who do not have this particular holiday in their tradition, and with those who have not otherwise the means to provide a bountiful meal for themselves. It is a time when we give thanks for the blessings we have: our family, our friends, our good fortune, and our nation.
Today, after a year of worldwide tumult, it seems appropriate to reflect a bit on the story of this nation, how we became "We the People," and why we might be grateful for being citizens of this country.
How did the Thanksgiving tradition begin?
The Pilgrims, known in England as Separatists, were jailed, fined, and ostracized for rejecting the doctrines of the Church of England. They fled England in 1608 and established a church community in Leyden, Holland. When they decided to come to American, the London Company of Virginia sponsored their passage in exchange for labor and produce from the New World. In 1620 they set sail for Virginia with 42 men and women from the Leyden congregation and 60 passengers recruited by the London Company, including approximately 30 children. While harbored outside Cape Cod, the Pilgrims adopted the Mayflower Compact.
Of the 102 voyagers, only 55 survived the first winter. The rest died of exposure, scurvy, and dysentery. The few who were well enough risked their own health to tend to the sick. Perhaps they all would have died by the next winter had it not been for the help of the local Native Americans, specially English-speaking Squanto, the sole survivor of the Pawtuxet tribe in Plymouth.
The following fall the Pilgrims gathered their abundant harvest. It was during this time that they celebrated, for three days, their first Thanksgiving feast, joined by 90 of their Native American Friends.
When was it first proclaimed a national feast day?
Both houses of Congress have . . . requested me "to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by favoring them with an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness . . ."
George Washington
October 3, 1789
Thanksgiving Proclamation,
Establishes first national Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving Becomes a National Holiday, October 3, 1863.
Sara Josepha Hale, a prominent writer and women's magazine editor, led a 40-year national campaign to make Thanksgiving an annual national holiday. She even promoted the traditional meal that we still eat today. During the Civil War, she sensed real urgency in the matter, and wrote in an 1859 editorial that a national Thanksgiving holiday could give rise to "a renewed pledge of love and loyalty to the Constitution of the United States . . ."
Shortly after the Battle of Gettysburg and Vicksburg, Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday in November as a national day of Thanksgiving. (Congress later changed it to the fourth Thursday to extend the Christmas shopping season.)
Lincoln hoped that Americans of both North and South would use the occasion to "heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union." Lincoln, like Hale, envisioned Thanksgiving Day as a time for all Americans to renew our pledge to the Constitution and rediscover our common purpose.
Leader: Consider what we celebrate about this country as we read from The Declaration of Independence:
Reader: WHEN in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.
All We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness-That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed.
Reader: It is the Right of the People . . . to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Reader: We, therefore, the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of our Intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly Publish and Declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, Free And Independent States . . .
Reader: . . . and that as FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which INDEPENDENT STATES may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
The Declaration of Independence
All: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Preamble to the Constitution
Reader: Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Emma Lazarus "The New Colossus"
(as it appears on a pedestal at the base of the Statue of Liberty
Reader: Proclaim freedom throughout the land and to all the inhabitants thereof.
Leviticus, 24:10
Inscription on the Liberty Bell
Reader: We take the star from Heaven,
Red from our mother country,
Separating it by white stripes,
Thus showing that we have
Separated from her, and the
White stripes shall go down to
Posterity representing liberty.
George Washington
On the American Flag
Reader: It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.
Alexander Hamilton
Federalist Paper No. 1
Reader: Is it not the glory of the people of America, that whilst they have paid a decent regard to the opinions of former times and other nations, they have not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names, to overrule the suggestions of their own good sense, the knowledge of their own situation, and the lessons of their own experience? To this manly spirit, posterity will be indebted for the possession, and the world for the example of the numerous innovations displayed on the American theatre, in favor of private rights and public happiness.
James Madison
Federalist Paper No. 14
Reader: This government, the off-spring of our own choice uninfluenced and unawed . . . completely free in its principles . . . has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance with its Laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true Liberty . . . . the Constitution which at any time exists, ‘till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole People, is sacredly obligatory upon all.
George Washington
Farewell Address
Reader: "Four score and seven years ago, our forefathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."
Abraham Lincoln
Gettysburg Address of 1863
Reader: It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizen; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union . . . Men, their rights and nothing more, women, their rights and nothing less.
Susan B. Anthony
Reader: When an American says that he loves his country, he means not only that he loves the New England hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains, and the sea. He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which a man can draw the breath of self-respect.
Adlai Stevenson
Reader: In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence,
they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Reader: Freedom is an indivisible word. If we want to enjoy it, and fight for it, we must be prepared to extend it to everyone, whether they are rich or poor, whether they agree with us or not, no matter what their race or the color of their skin.
Wendell Wilkie
Reader: And so my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.
John F. Kennedy
Leader: But this is not just a nation whose political institutions are vested in freedom. All of our institutions are grounded in it: our forms of education; our expressions of speech, thought, and religion; even our humor:
Reader: The very aim and end of our institutions is just this: that we may think what we like and say what we think.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Reader: And I honor the man who is willing to sink
half his present repute for the freedom to think.
And, when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak,
will risk t'other half for the freedom to speak.
James Russell Lowell
Reader: It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.
Mark Twain
Reader: We must dare to think "unthinkable" thoughts. We must learn to explore all the options and possibilities that confront us in a complex and rapidly changing world. We must learn to welcome and not to fear the voices of dissent. We must dare to think about "unthinkable things" because when things become unthinkable, thinking stops and action becomes mindless.
James William Fulbright
Reader: Until legislators discover that the only way to make good citizens and subjects is to nourish them from infancy; and until parents shall be convinced that the worst of men are not the proper teachers to make the best, mankind cannot know to what degree of perfection society and government may be carried.
Noah Webster
Reader: Never let schooling get in the way of your education.
Mark Twain
Leader: It is a land of practical wisdom too:
Reader: From Poor Richard's Almanack:
Reader: Eat to live, and not live to eat.
Reader: Work as if you were to live a hundred years, pray as if you were to die tomorrow.
Reader: Fish and visitors stink in 3 days.
Reader: Hear no ill of a Friend, nor speak any of an Enemy.
Reader: Little strokes fell great oaks.
Reader: No pains, no gains.
Reader: Beware Expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship.
Reader: Teach your child to hold his tongue; he'll learn fast enough to speak.
Reader: There will be sleeping enough in the grave
Reader: Look before, or you'll find yourself behind.
Reader: Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.
Reader: Better slip with foot than tongue.
Reader: Necessity never made a good bargain.
Reader: Well done is better than well said.
Reader: God helps them that help themselves.
Reader: Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.
Benjamin Franklin
Reader: Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
Mark Twain
Leader: It is a land with a big heart:
Reader: When an American needs the assistance of his fellows, it is very rare for that to be refused, and I have often seen it given spontaneously and eagerly . . . When some unexpected disaster strikes a family, a thousand strangers willingly open their purses, and small but very numerous gifts relieve their distress.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Democracy in America
Leader: It is a land that celebrates invention, ingenuity, artistry and generosity. It is a chorus of celebration of what free men and women do with their freedom:
Reader: I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of
the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day--at night, the party of young fellows,
robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.
Walt Whitman
Reader: The American lives in a land of wonders; everything around him is in constant movement, and every movement seems an advance . . . nowhere does he see any limit placed by nature to human endeavor; in his eyes something which does not exist is just something that has not been tried yet.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Democracy in America
Reader: If at first, an idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.
Albert Einstein
Reader: Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore, we must be saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Reader: I am an inventor. Faraday was a scientist. He didn't work for money . . but I do. I measure everything I do by the size of a silver dollar. If it don't come up to that standard, then I know it's no good.
Thomas A. Edison
Reader: One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.
Neil Armstrong
Leader: As we go to eat, let us remember our blessings and consider what we have to be grateful for. May we find the faith and the courage to face the challenges of the coming year – and may that year be one of peace, liberty and justice for all.
Let us join together and sing our praise:
America the Beautiful
O beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain, For purple mountain majesties Above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed his grace on thee And crown thy good
With brotherhoodFrom sea to shining sea!O beautiful for pilgrim feetWhose stern, impassioned stressA thoroughfare for freedom beatAcross the wilderness!America! America!God mend thine every flaw,Confirm thy soul
In self-control,Thy liberty in law! O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife. Who more than self
the country lovedAnd mercy more than life! America! America!May God thy gold refine Till all success
Be nobleness And every gain divine!O beautiful for patriot dream That sees beyond the years Thine alabaster cities gleam Undimmed by human tears! America! America! God shed his grace on thee And crown thy good
With brotherhood From sea to shining sea
Words: Katherine Lee Bates (1859-1929), alt.
Music: Materna
Leader: We cannot possibly have covered the particular things we each have to be thankful for. So, let us take just a moment to reflect silently on what just one of those things might be: What have you especially to be greateful for?
And if there is ever a lull in the conversation at your dinner table, one question we might consider discussing is this: What does it mean to be truly grateful for something? Or grateful to someone? What is the proper condition of mind and heart for the expression of gratitude?
Bon Appetit!
Additional Songs
My Country, 'Tis of Thee
My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing; land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside let freedom ring.
My native country, thee, land of the noble free, thy name I love; I love thy rocks and rills, thy woods and templed hills; my heart with rapture thrills like that above.
Let music swell the breeze, and ring from all the trees sweet freedom's song; let mortal tongues awake, let all that breathe partake, let rocks their silence break, the sound prolong.
Our fathers' God, to thee, author of liberty, to thee we sing; long may our land be bright with freedom's holy light; protect us by thy might, great God, our King.
Words: Samuel Francis Smith, 1832
Music: America
The National Anthem (please stand)
Oh, say can you see, by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming? And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep, Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes, What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep, As it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses? Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam, In full glory reflected now shines on the stream: 'Tis the star-spangled banner! O long may it wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion A home and a country should leave us no more? Their blood has wiped out their foul footstep's pollution. No refuge could save the hireling and slave From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave: And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand Between their loved homes and the war's desolation! Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation. Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto: "In God is our trust." And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
Francis Scott Key (1779 - 1843)
"Then, in that hour of deliverance, my heart spoke. Does not such a country, and such defenders of their country, deserve a song?..."
Francis Scott Key, son of an established Maryland family, was born on August 1, 1779, in western Maryland (Frederick, MD) on the family estate of "Terra Rubra." He attended grammar school and later graduated from St. Johns College in Annapolis at age 17. He went on to found the St. John's College Alumni Association in 1805.
God Bless America (you may wish to stand.)
Reader While the storm clouds gather far across the sea,Let us swear allegiance to a land that's free,Let us all be grateful for a land so fair,As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer:
God Bless America. Land that I love Stand beside her, and guide her Thru the night, with a light from above. From the mountains, to the prairies, To the oceans, white with foam God bless America My home sweet home. God Bless America, Land that I love Stand beside her, and guide her, Through the night, with the light from above, From the mountains, to the prairies, To the ocean, white with foam, God bless America, My home sweet home. God bless America, My home sweet home.
Melody - Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin wrote this in 1938 for Kate Smith to sing on her regular radio broadcast. It quickly became her signature song and one of America's most loved patriotic songs.
The Nelson Household
St. John's College
