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Health & Fitness

Lincoln and Kennedy: gratitude in adversity

“The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies.”  Abraham Lincoln’s gracious assessment of 1863 is immortalized in the opening line of his first Thanksgiving Day Proclamation.

150 years have passed since Lincoln’s establishment of an annual, national observance of “Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.”  In 1863 that day came just one week after the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery at Gettysburg where Lincoln gave his celebrated two minute address. The War Between the States would go on for another year and a half.

What prompted Lincoln to articulate such a “healthful” outlook, where many saw only servitude to gloom and despair, was an intensified appreciation for blessings and their origin.  He saw “bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come.”  He writes in his Thanksgiving Proclamation that these abundances are “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.”   

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Such an attitude as Lincoln’s serves as a timely example for all of us.  The individual battles of sickness, depression, poverty, addiction, unemployment, and more can overwhelm our sensibilities and want us to surrender to discouragement and despair.  Yet, acknowledging the simple blessings that befall us each and every day can go a long way in helping us claim and experience victory over the obstacles in our way.

“To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, today is big with blessings.”  As did so many Americans who lived during the tumultuous decade of civil strife, Mary Baker Eddy came to understand the profound effectiveness of a grateful heart in steering through life’s difficulties.  She went on to write, “Are we really grateful for the good already received?  Then we shall avail ourselves of the blessing we have, and thus be fitted to receive more.”  Taking this stance might be viewed as definitive humility.

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President Lincoln recommended humility in his proclamation as part of our acknowledgement to Him for our “singular deliverance and blessings.”  100 years later in his Thanksgiving Day Proclamation of 1963, President John F. Kennedy also singled out Lincoln’s expression, “singular deliverance and blessings.”

Like Lincoln, Kennedy faced adversity on a large scale while President.  The nuclear threat of the Cuban missile crisis, civil rights protests, and his own health concerns undoubtedly weighed on him. 

While written earlier in the month, the publishing of the 1963 Proclamation on Thanksgiving Day came six days after Kennedy’s death.  Humility was also the substance of his decree which culminated with this avowal, “Let us therefore proclaim our gratitude to Providence for manifold blessings - let us be humbly thankful for inherited ideals - and let us resolve to share those blessings and those ideals with our fellow human beings throughout the world.”

Sincere gratitude and authentic humility are qualities that bring healing.  They are abilities that each of us already possess.  Utilizing them in the face of what seem insurmountable difficulties can bring benefits individually and collectively.  Presidents Lincoln and Kennedy understood and validated the potential of thankfulness.

In counting our blessings, Abraham Lincoln concluded that the country, “rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.”  His forecast of freedom from all our ills, can undoubtedly contribute to “healthful skies.”

 

Steven Salt is a writer and blogger about health, spirituality and thought.  He is a Christian Science practitioner, curious about everything.  You can follow him on Twitter @SaltSeasoned.

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