OP-ED Giving Thanksgiving new meaning

Author: Josh Wessler

Each year in November, many people ask themselves: what does Thanksgiving mean? Is it a celebration of giving, or of receiving and being thankful? These questions often lead to a consideration of the historical understanding of the holiday, which emphasizes the bounty of the harvest, the communion with others - a symbolic, and hearty, act of acknowledging the common need for sustenance.

November is not August, however, when the harvest is at its peak and when the summer sun still casts a warm gaze. Nor is it the early spring, when the thaw brings relief along with painful reminders of what was lost in the winter. November is quite squarely set before the cold season, when survival depended upon the stores set aside in autumn and when the frost thinned the ranks - the skinny season was nothing to scoff at.

So what were early notions of Thanksgiving? It was perhaps a solemn affair, infused with gratefulness for the chance to survive the winter. A celebration, to be sure, but it was defiant as well as hopeful.

By comparison, today's November feast is just that: a gluttonous tribute to the excess and dislocation of the food industry, an onanistic ode to the materialist plunge of American society.

Or is it?

In the light of the continuing economic, shall we say, downturn, Thanksgiving appears different. Although unemployment rises, gas and food prices drop. Friends and family seem more reluctant to travel and to spend frivolously. Store owners and managers appear especially welcoming and generous with discounts.

This season, those that receive do so with particular grace. Those that have enough are thankful, yet reluctant to give too much, for fear of what economic freeze may come. For those without, they hope for the best, and for an early spring. (With global warming in effect, January 20 may be downright balmy).

Each year, Thanksgiving is an opportunity to ask two questions. First: what are we thankful for? Second: why do we reserve a single day to ask ourselves the first question? This economic crisis is also a time for reconsidering how our treatment of others and the world around us may help us or hurt us. It seems appropriate to ask why we reserve those questions for the moment when the sky turns gray.