Thanksgiving 2007

Dear Friend,

Thanksgiving is an annual national event, a state of mind and a way of life.

Thanksgiving is an annual national event in the United States that was first celebrated by New England colonists in 1621 to give thanks to God for their first harvest. After arriving in New England the year before the first harvest was especially appreciated by the colonists, since sickness and disease during a difficult winter claimed the lives of 47 of the 103 that the Mayflower brought from Southhampton, England. William Bradford, the regional governor, proclaimed a day of prayer and thanksgiving that would be shared by the colonists and neighboring Indians. Later in 1863, during the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln made a proclamation for a national Day of Thanksgiving, which has become our Thanksgiving Day. A copy of Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Day Proclamation is attached. 

Thanksgiving is a state of mind. Each one of us has a choice to thankful or not every minute of every day. Viktor Frankl is a holocaust survivor and author of the classic best seller of over 9 million copies entitled Man’s Search for Meaning: Experiences in the Concentration Camp. Frankl attributed his survival to choosing the state of mind that is summarized in his following quote: "Everything can be taken away from man but one thing - to choose one’s attitude in a given set of circumstances…” Frankl attributes his survival at Auschwitz to his attitude and his hope for the future. At 90 years old in 1995, Frankl said “in a way I do pity those younger people who did not know the camps or live during the war, who have nothing like that to compare [their own hardships] with….Even today, as I lose my sight or with any severe problem or adverse situation….I have only to think for a fraction of a second and I draw a deep breath. What I would have given then if I could have had no greater problem than I face today!" Regardless of our situation in life, we have a choice regarding the extent to which we are thankful. Compared to the Nazi concentration camps, Rwanda, Darfur, we have much for which to be thankful while living in America today. However, to be alive is to have problems with relationships, finances, employment, etc. Yet, by choosing to be thankful, we will find ourselves focusing on the positive and on being content and grateful for the portion of life we have been given. With a thankful state of mind it is difficult to be depressed. With a thankful state of mind we are happier and more pleasant to be around. 

Thanksgiving is a way of life. An inward attitude of thanksgiving results in us viewing others in lesser circumstances with an attitude of “if not for the grace of God, there go I”. When things do not go our way, the following quote helps to put things into perspective: “I cried because I had no shoes, then I met a man who had no feet.” The bottom line is that a thankful attitude will result in a way of life that will be characterized with contentment, giving, encouraging others and making the most of the resources that our Provider has graciously allowed us to enjoy. 

May your Thanksgiving Day and the years ahead be characterized by thanks and giving.

Tedd Harshaw

Broker Associate

Integrity, Service, Value…..PERIOD!

Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation

By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consiousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.  

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People.  

I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand 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, tranquillity and Union.  

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.  Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.  

By the President: Abraham Lincoln  

William H. Seward,
Secretary of State