Thanksgiving
Posted on Nov 18, 2009
Our natural inclination as parents is to protect our children from all adversity and pain. This is an inclination born, at least in part, by an increasing ability to accomplish it. Those with access to basic medical care now give birth with few complications and thereafter sidestep the majority of historical childhood diseases. Thankfully, modern medicine has changed many of the life-threatening illnesses of youth into merely childhood inconveniences. However, history also records that many significant inventions, medical discoveries and works of art, music and literature, were incubated during periods of illness, adversity and pain.
As we approach our celebration of Thanksgiving, we should remember that the day owes its very existence to the periods of hardship that gave it relevance. The repeating pattern of adversity, disease, crop failure, pain and, of course, of death itself provided the bookends that drove our ancestors to their knees to give thanks. Remember, too, that these characteristics of life were not new to humanity just because settlers had crossed the Atlantic. Thanksgiving is as old as man himself.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe apparently led a charmed childhood in the Germany of the middle 1700s. Though he was interested in a wide variety of disciplines, it was after his uninspired completion of a law degree that his life changed. Failed relationships, internal hemorrhaging and the need for an extensive medical convalescence spurred his foray into the literary arts. His most famous dramatic work, Faust, was penned after his self-imposed exile to Italy to avoid controversies in the Weimar court. Amid such tension, Goethe’s reputation and wisdom grew. In her book, The Art of Abundance, author Candy Paul reminds her readers of Goethe’s nine requirements for contentment:
Health enough to make work a pleasure; wealth enough to support your needs; strength enough to battle with difficulties and overcome them; grace enough to confess your sins and forsake them; patience enough to toil until some good is accomplished; charity enough to see some good in your neighbor; love enough to move you to be useful and helpful to others; faith enough to make real things of God; and hope enough to remove all anxious fears concerning the future.
Happy Thanksgiving!
