Today Is Thanksgiving Day 2021
Today is November 25…….Thanksgiving Day. The present form of this federal holiday of gratitude was enacted into law by Congress in 1885. It originally stemmed from a proclamation by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 in the midst of the Civil War. The proclamation called for a national day of thanksgiving, to be celebrated on the final Thursday of November. This proclamation set the precedent for America’s Thanksgiving Day. The date for the holiday was fixed by federal law in 1941 as the fourth Thursday in November.
In the midst of the calamity of the Civil War, with the unrelenting violence, death and destruction threatening to rip apart the nation, Lincoln instinctively felt it was necessary for everyone to just take a day off from dwelling on the negative effects and events of the war and simply dwell on those gifts received that would generate true gratitude to the Almighty.
In the manner of synchronicities, Sarah Josepha Hale, a 74 year old magazine editor wrote a letter that Lincoln received on September 28, 1863 urging him to have a national day of thanksgiving to permanently become an American custom and institution. President Lincoln responded to Mrs. Hale’s letter immediately and issued the proclamation of a Day of Thanksgiving to be held on the last Thursday of November 1863.
Of course, over the years, the societal controllers and manipulators of consumption have made every attempt to contort this holiday into an ode to eating food and buying stuff (think Black Friday sales). As is always the case, they only succeed to the extent that you allow them to succeed. OK, you say, what is so bad about having a good dinner with family and then saving some money on the purchase of Christmans gifts? Nothing, absolutely nothing at all, they are good things unless they distract you away from deeply experiencing the eternal magic of gratitude.
Filler Up With High Octane
Gratitude is the fuel that powers the engine of the cosmic delivery truck that delivers “the good stuff” to you. Just as your car won’t go anywhere if it does not have any fuel, the universe patiently waits for your gratitude fillup before the delivery truck of goodies can start on its way to you.
It all filters down to your current (as in right now) awareness of being. If you are truly feeling gratitude for something, you are simultaneously transmitting neural electro-magnetic impulses to the universe. The neural impulses of gratitude are received by Universal Intelligence. In alignment with how the universe was created by God, your electrical signal of giving thanks sets off a chain reaction that in turn starts sending “good stuff” your way in order to match the “feeling wave length” that you are transmitting. This is equivalent to a television signal that is sent out from the broadcasting tower.
When you direct the tv remote to the designated channel that you want to watch, your receive the program that is on that channel. That channel represents a specific wave frequency. That is why it is of paramount importance to you to always be thankful. Otherwise you turn off the flow. I will repeat that — if you turn off the gratitude, you turn off the flow. The flow is not turned off by God, or your spouse or girlfriend or your boss or co-workers. Not even Joe the barber. You do it, as in y-o-u.
Yeah, It Really Is a 7/24 Thing
You do not have to be thankful all the time, only when you are actively breathing. In First Thessalonians 5:18 it states, “In everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you” (KJV). This verse is a toughie when something bad has happened in your life. How do you give thanks for a negative event and more importantly, why would you?
In the midst of some minor or major negative event, that is the time when it is all the more important to find a way to generate thanksgiving for something…..anything. The reason being is that it sets into immediate motion the ongoing electrical impulses that will subsequently return to you in the form of something good happening for you as long as you keep the electric current turned on. Very easy in good times. Very hard in bad times but you have to find a way to do it.
I understand, better than you may think, that you may have zero desire to be thankful when bad things happen. You have to will yourself into gratitude mode. It is your way out of trouble and hardship. Dwell in God. Don’t you see? Your awareness of being “down and out” only anchors that condition to you. Choose (and it is your free will choice) to ignore circumstances and relentlessly send out electrical impulses of thankfulness to Universal Intelligence — Original Source. By doing that, you, yes you, start the process of overcoming that trouble or hardship no matter what it is.
And then stay thankful. Stay thankful, not to be some mindless moron who merely accepts bad stuff and then says, “Thank you sir may I have another” like the fraternity pledge in the movie Animal House. Stay thankful in order to use your God-given power to create your life circumstances and fashion a reality that you truly desire.
Feeling + Action = Power
When you combine your feeling of gratitude with some type of action that reflects your gratitude, that is what is termed a synergism. It is you “upping your game”. A thanksgiving action does not have to be something that is expensive or time consuming or showy.
Just what is a thanksgiving action you say? It is something that says “I am receiving…I have received…I will receive…good stuff and I want to demonstrate my appreciation. It can be something as so simple as a smile and a kind word to someone. Perhaps it is a silent prayer for someone who you think could use a prayer (God, I claim a rich blessing for this person today. Thank you. Amen.).
It could be tolerance and patience (when you don’t want to be tolerant or patient) when somebody makes a mistake. Maybe it is just stopping for a few moments and listening to someone who wishes to say something. It could be be doing something helpful for someone without the slightest expectation that they will ever even know about what you did for them. It could be a thousand and one simple little things that you could come up with that send a signal of gratitude to Universal Source.
You can try to ignore it. You can try to deny it. That doesn’t change anything – gratitude is absolutely vital to your personal well being. The thirteenth century theologian and mystic, Meister Eckhart, stated: “If the only prayer that you ever said during your entire life was ‘Thank You’, it would be enough.”
The Boil Down
When a chef “boils down” a sauce, stew, pudding or other dish, he decreases the water or other liquid in it — it evaporates in the steam rising from the pan. Cooks do this to make something thicker and more flavorful. Carrying over this phrase to outside of the cooking realm, when you boil down something, it means that you get down to its essence. When I read something, a book, an article, an essay, etc., in my mind I always try to do a “boil down” so that I will remember the essence of the book, article or essay.
I hope that you enjoyed reading this blog post. However, I hope that you do more than just read it. My hope even more is that you actively use it to make your life better. There is something inside me that desires, in these final years of my life, to spread the word about universal truths that I have learned about during my stay in this dimension. If you remember nothing else of this post, I will give you a “boil down” of just five easy words to remember — Be Thankful……..Get Good Stuff.
