Today is Thanksgiving and I’ve spent the last week trying to be mindful of my blessings and privileges both of which are far too numerous to genuinely account for. This morning I was reminded of the origin of the Thanksgiving holiday. The story of the Plymouth Pilgrims and Massachusetts natives sharing a bountiful harvest is a wonderful part of our nation’s history, and is rightfully remembered. That occasion was celebrated locally and on a state level for many years, but Thanksgiving didn’t become a national holiday until Abraham Lincoln responded to the longsuffering pleadings of Sarah Josepha Hale. Ms. Hale was the editor of a publication “Lady’s Book”, and had long advocated for an official, fixed, annual, national day of Thanksgiving, but it appears previous leaders hadn’t felt compelled to act. She wrote President Lincoln in 1863 and he responded.
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 unequalled 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 consciousness 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.
This official proclamation appears to have been penned by Lincoln’s Secretary of State William Seward. This year, more than in years past the context of that proclamation stands out to me.
Obviously 1863 was the middle, or the beginning of the end, of the Civil War. A conflict that divided a nation around the limits of “personal property”, the scope and nature of governmental authority with regard to member states, and citizens therein. A conflict whose character and purpose were refined and clarified as the casualties mounted. Over the 150 years since the war many different ideas have been offered about what it all meant. I think the events and thoughts expressed in and around 1863 are informative and inspiring.
One of my favorite hymns is The Battle Hymn of The Republic. Originally a camp revival tune set to words memorializing John Brown’s failed attempt at ending slavery by an attack at Harper’s Ferry, “John Brown’s Body” was sung by soldiers heading off to war. While the idea of fighting for right and preserving the Union are present in the lyrics, they weren’t exactly awe inspiring. “John Brown’s bold lies moldering in the grave”, “They will hang Jeff Davis to a tree”, and “Now three rousing cheers for the union”. I can see how a group of New England soldiers could sing it as a marching song, but I doubt we’d be singing it in church 150 years later without the aid of Julia Ward Howe. In 1862 she published most of the lyrics we now sing in the February edition of The Atlantic Monthly.
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.
I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.
I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
“As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal”;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on.
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat;
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me.
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,[16]
While God is marching on.
The final verse has been altered in most modern versions to “as he died to make men holy, let us live to make men free”
That’s something we can all still get behind. To transform a bloody civil war into an act of redemption and justice is to make something very ugly into something admirable. Besides the fact that it’s a catchy tune, I’m convinced that stanza is the reason why we still sing this song. The Civil War may be over, but the call to people of conviction and faith to do good, and lift up those around us has yet to be silenced.
I don’t intend to dig deeply into the factors, causes, and stated reasons for the Civil War. Anyone willing to read the documents of secession can ascertain the ultimate, undergirding truth for themselves. That said, the emancipation proclamation became law January 1 1863.
That on the first day of January in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.
Of course the majority of humans held as property were not under Union authority in any real, practical way that day. Nonetheless the proclamation clarified the nature and intent of the conflict. This was not a battle to simply preserve the status quo, but to bring our collective will and might to bear in a matter of basic human dignity and rights. To extend the language and promises of our founding documents in a way previously neglected that led directly to the crisis and conflict.
The Emancipation Proclamation is a fine piece of law and is inspiring, but grade school children generally don’t memorize it. It’s fine, but Honest Abe had more to offer on this topic. 1863 was a terrible year in terms of the magnitude of death and injury during the Civil War. The Battles of Chancellorsville, Vicksburg, and Gettysburg all happened in 1863. The tide began to turn and the strategies that would lead to the final outcome began to take shape, but beyond the place names, dates, and numbers were humans dying. In really large numbers. 19 November 1863 President Lincoln spoke at the dedication of a cemetery at Gettysburg for soldiers who died at the battle in July.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Later that year Henry Wadsworth Longfellow contemplated the state of the nation. His wife had been killed in a fire 2 years before. In early 1863 his son joined the Union army and was severely injured in November. On Christmas Day we wrote a poem describing his thoughts and feelings.
I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
and wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
“For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.”
2020 has been a year of conflict and loss. I don’t need to enumerate the conflicts and losses here. I find these words written in the depths of conflict, injury, and lost life inspiring. Not only can words lift our minds from the depths of despair, but they can inspire us to collectively strive to lift those around us. To heal wounds physical and emotional. On this day of Thanksgiving I am glad words like these exist.
I have lived an unusually privileged life. I was raised by 2 loving parents who worked hard to teach me the lessons that brought them success and happiness. I have been surrounded by family and friends my entire life who have looked past my imperfections and faults and offenses and helped me grow. At every major turning point or life changing decision luck, and providence have allowed me to study what I wanted to study at the schools I wanted to study at and meet people who have and continue to change my life for the better. A brief example.
I live and work in St George, Utah. This job was created for me largely in part because I became friends with Tyler Haberle in residency at the University of Iowa. I applied to the University of Iowa Residency in part because my wife had gone to elementary school there while her father did his residency and fellowship there. He’s a fantastic physician I admire and since he learned there, and my wife liked Iowa City I applied. It was a fantastic decision. I met my wife in Columbus while attending medical school at Ohio State University. The only reason I applied to Ohio State was because my good friend Steve Hamilton interviewed there a year before I applied and he said “Mark, I think you’d like that program”. I would have never in a million years applied there had he not said that. I met Steve my freshman year of college at the University of Utah. We lived on the same floor in the Austin Hall dormitory. I attended the University of Utah because when I drove past it as an 8-year old I was totally enamored of the beauty of the campus and said to myself “this is where I’m going to school when I grow up”.
Basically I live in an incredibly beautiful place, with a wonderful, kind, compassionate partner and 3 amazing children, near to father, grandmother, aunt, uncle, in-laws, and extended family, working a rewarding job, associating with great friends all because a willful 8-year old got his way, and had the blessing of meeting and being loved and accepted by amazing people at every step in his journey. I could repeat this exercise many times over with more and more detail and you would get really annoyed about what a charmed life Mark has led.
Certainly bad things have happened to me. I’ve experienced tragedy, heartache, and the consequences of folly. You can’t be a stubborn, arrogant, foolish, know-it-all and not help but find yourself in humbling circumstances occasionally. These moments and challenges have also helped me grow, but I haven’t developed the capacity to turn those moments into a shareable work of sublime, transcendent beauty. I am so glad people like Julia Ward Howe, Abraham Lincoln, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow exist. I hope their words and those like them inspire me and you to be and do what we can to lift and heal those around us.
MaximumKungFu 
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