Counting blessings, embracing strengths this Thanksgiving

THE fallout of this long, ragged recession might well dampen the toasts at today's Thanksgiving dinners. Jobs lost, health-care benefits vanished, lifestyles rolled back, the daily latte habit eliminated.

A war-weary military and nation await President Obama's new strategy for Afghanistan, eight years after the war began to answer the 9/11 terrorism attacks. The war in Iraq, with its regrettable and suspicious beginnings, straggles into its sixth year.

But the perspective of another war president almost 150 years ago bears reflection.

As the Civil War dragged into its 18 month, President Abraham Lincoln signed a Thanksgiving Proclamation that began the annual American tradition of counting blessings. Other presidents before him signed them sometimes, but Lincoln's began the nation's annual late-November pause.

His proclamation is a prayerful work, giving thanks to the "Most High God," but it is also a painstakingly laborious glass-half-full effort to eke out blessings in the middle of a "civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity" that threatened to rend the nation. The war would take the lives of 620,000 Americans, but the union would endure.

"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 settlement, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore ... and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years, with large increase of freedom."

Though much has changed since 1863, not the least of which is the idea that coal is the hope for the future, the spirit of Lincoln's message should be emulated.

We Americans, wars and all, have so much for which to be thankful. Our troops, of course, and all those before who fought for the liberties we enjoy. Though some are calling the shooting rampage at Fort Hood an act of terrorism, we have not had another terrorist attack on U.S. soil of the magnitude of 9/11.

A historic presidential election of a man who, had he lived in Lincoln's day, might have been a slave. That election changed course in many ways, not the least of which is the U.S. relationship with the world, and goosed robust, if cantankerous, debates on health care and energy.

Obama, a student of Lincoln's presidency, signed a Thanksgiving proclamation too, but his blessings-counting can be found in remarks he made after this week's Cabinet meeting.

"Having gone through this very wrenching adjustment, we continue to have the best universities in the world, the best innovation and technologies in the world. We continue to have some of the best workers in the world, the most productive workers in the world. And we have the kind of dynamism and entrepreneurship in our economy that's going to serve us well in the long term. The key is to bridge where we are now to that more prosperous future."

In his proclamation, Obama urged Americans to help fellow citizens: "Let us be guided by the legacy of those who have fought for the freedoms for which we give thanks, and be worthy heirs to the noble tradition of goodwill shown on this day."

In a time when so many of us have so much less than we used to and are missing loved ones fighting distant wars, it is certainly a time not only to count our blessings and catalog our strengths but to embrace them.

Count your blessings and keep the faith.

Happy Thanksgiving.