Wilbur Cross’s Proclamation

When I was growing up, Thanksgiving dinner didn’t officially begin until my mother had read some prayer of thanksgiving, whether from the pages of a siddur or clipped from the newspaper earlier in the week. 

Sadly, that tradition has fallen by the wayside in recent years.  Tomorrow, I intend to resurrect it, although it is somewhat likely that my plan will meet with objections.  Should I give in to them and not read the piece I’ve selected, I’m sharing it here in the hopes that it might get a well deserved reading at someone else’s holiday table.

I’ve chosen the now somewhat famous 1936 Thanksgiving proclamation of Connecticut Governor Wilbur L. Cross, who was a Shakespearean scholar and an esteemed professor of English at Yale.  His eloquence catches the ear and, seven decades after he penned it, his message remains timeless: 

Time out of mind at this turn of the seasons when the hardy oak leaves rustle in the wind and the frost gives a tang to the air and the dusk falls early and the friendly evenings lengthen under the heel of Orion, it has seemed good to our people to join together in praising the Creator and Preserver, who has brought us by a way that we did not know to the end of another year. In observance of this custom, I appoint Thursday, the twenty-sixth of November, as a day of Public Thanksgiving for the blessings that have been our common lot and have placed our beloved State with the favored regions of earth -- for all the creature comforts: the yield of the soil that has fed us and the richer yield from labor of every kind that has sustained our lives -- and for all those things, as dear as breath to the body, that quicken man's faith in his manhood, that nourish and strengthen his spirit to do the great work still before him: for the brotherly word and act; for honor held above price; for steadfast courage and zeal in the long, long search after truth; for liberty and for justice freely granted by each to his fellow and so as freely enjoyed; and for the crowning glory and mercy of peace upon our land; -- that we may humbly take heart of these blessings as we gather once again with solemn and festive rites to keep our Harvest Home.

May each of us appreciate the blessings that are ours, savor the company of family and friends, and not overdo it with the mashed potatoes.

Happy Thanksgiving!

A New Camelot

Today marks the 45th anniversary of the end of Camelot. If you’re at least as old as I am, you know exactly where you were when you heard the news on that fateful day in the history of our country and of the world.

Me? I was in a stroller, says my mother, in Flair Chevrolet in New Brunswick, New Jersey. (The dealership is long gone and thus there's no hyperlink to the site.) I’ve never asked her, but because those were the “graduate school days,” my guess is that we weren't there to kick the tires, slam the doors or road test a 1964 Chevy Impala. Instead, in my mind she was sitting on a tacky, turquoise blue vinyl chair, absently pushing the stroller (with me in it) back and forth and back and forth, waiting for the grease monkeys to finish working on her old clunker that happened to be a Chevy. Had it been a Ford or a Chrysler, I bet we’d have been at one of those dealerships instead. I could be wrong, of course, but that’s my guess.

Anyway… that was the end of Camelot. Right there in Flair Chevrolet. Finished, the end, done.

At least for a while.

But now, a generation and a half later, it seems that maybe, just maybe, we are on the brink of a new Camelot.

Despite the dire financial news we hear and feel anew each day, the two wars on the other side of the globe that go on and on and on, and the graft, corruption and fraud that run rampant in the corporate and public sectors, I believe that we are in for a sea change. Or at least I hope we are.

Like so many others, I anxiously await the inauguration of our new president and a return to a leader of whom we can be proud. More important than our pride, though, are his deliberations and his actions. May he do right by this country and by all of us, and indeed, may our Camelot arrive swiftly and prosper long.

Election Reflections

At lunch today, Naomi, one of my colleagues, told the following story:

Her father was a poll worker in Wisconsin yesterday. An elderly African-American woman came in to vote. She was carrying with her a small package. The poll workers asked her what it was and she said, "I brought my ancestors with me." With that, she opened the package and took out pictures of several deceased relatives. The poll workers helped her set them up in the voting booth so they could be with her when she voted.

Naomi said that she's told the story three or four times and gets teary with each telling. She isn't the only one.

* * *

As always happens when I go to vote, I think about my grandparents. My grandfather died in March of 1986 and my grandmother in July of 1991. And, while I observe their yahrzeits at the appropriate season each year, I also think of Election Day as a pseudo-yahrzeit for each of them. In this, their adopted country, they savored the right to step up, to raise their voices, and to have them count. Never did either of them miss a trip to the polls on Election Day. Indeed, it is a most fitting tribute to their memories.

It was these thoughts that occupied my mind yesterday as I left my polling place. On the short walk home, I began to compose this post in my mind. And then this morning, I found the following poem on the blog of Rabbi James Stone Goodman:

Prayer After Voting

I voted
O holy God, I voted,
I felt good voting.
I honored my predecessors –
My grandparents, my parents of blessed memory –
Knowing, for them,
Voting
Was an ascendant experience.
They had complete confidence in our country
To provide opportunity for us
Their children
– That they did not have.

That is a matter of memory
Because I have had all opportunity,
But their stories reminded me that they
Did not.

I voted with the intention to honor them.
This year I voted from frustration too.

I voted against negativist language
Stiff, formal, and unbelievable to me –
The handlers speaking through puppets
Playing off fear in our country
When I want to vote for hope.

I voted for hope.
I voted for a deeper level of discourse
For a lower timbre of speech
Don’t yell at me pundits and politicians
And don’t think I am so easily played.
You couldn’t reach me with your strategies –
This year your strategies were transparent
And ugly –
And I turned off your voices
When they weren’t honest voices.

The problem is always discernment –
This year it was easy.
I know the truth when I hear it.
I voted out of discernment.

I voted for hope
I voted with the intention of honoring
Those who voted before me
During periods of higher expectations.

O holy God, I voted for higher expectations
Authenticity
Purification of purpose
Real talk from real people.

Politicos — don’t sweet talk me.
I’ll vote again.

Indeed, after such eloquence, there is nothing left to say.

Labor Day Lessons

As a respite from the hectic pace of New York City life, two friends and I took a day trip to Hyde Park, NY over the Labor Day weekend. There we visited Springwood, the home, gardens and presidential library of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and, just a few miles down the road, Val-Kill, Eleanor Roosevelt’s home after FDR’s death.

As we wandered through the detailed exhibits in the presidential library, I was struck by how similar today’s challenges are to those that Roosevelt faced during his dozen years in office. Like him, our political leaders must contend with an economy in a downward spiral, troops at war, and, as Hurricane Gustav raced toward the Gulf Coast, a natural disaster that, not unlike the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, had the potential—yet again--to further destroy America’s crumbling physical infrastructure, and wreak personal and economic havoc on countless of its citizens.

Because our visit coincided with Labor Day weekend (a holiday that, ironically, was initiated in 1882, the year of Roosevelt’s birth), I could not help but notice, too, how many of his New Deal initiatives were designed to put Americans back to work and, more importantly, to ensure that from their labors, they and their families would be assured of some measure of social and financial security.

Yesterday, as many of us refrained from our own labors, I was cognizant that, in addition to celebrating the last gasp of summer with a leisurely day of picnics, swimming and, perhaps, shopping, we must be grateful for the very work of our hands, our minds and our hearts. More importantly, it is incumbent upon us to promote fair labor practices, a living wage, and workplace rights, as well as to discourage workplace discrimination in all its forms, and to guarantee health and safety standards for all who work in our factories, our offices and our homes. In so doing, may we honor Roosevelt’s memory, and serve as a model for our current and future leaders that they may follow our lead.