Philosopher/longshoreman Eric Hoffer once
said that the most difficult arithmetic in life to master is “that which enables
us to count our blessings.”
I like to think of it as the arithmetic of
gratitude.
Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away. While I’m grateful for the material
blessings in my life, my gratitude this year centers on the transcendent
blessings that are rooted in faith and my good fortune to have been born in
this great country.
The Almighty has been far more kind and gracious to me
than I deserve. I find that more often than I care to admit I lurch and blunder
my way down the road to heaven. I’m grateful that God allows me to continue to
keep lurching and blundering. I’m especially grateful that my weakness and
occasional willfulness haven’t disqualified me from the journey.
This morning I tuned in to C-Span’s “Washington Journal.”
The early segment was about the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address.
The host, Pedro Echevarria, asked the audience to call in with their thoughts
on the meaning they took from Lincoln’s words. I called in and was fortunate
enough to actually get through. In the few minutes I had I tried my best to
explain that we Americans are no more or less extraordinary than anyone else on
this planet. The thing that really makes America special is our transcendent founding
principles - ordered liberty and equality before the law. Lincoln outlined them
beautifully early in his speech. Then he rhetorically surveyed the field where
so many had died and called on his countrymen to “take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full
measure of devotion.” Finally, like an Old Testament prophet, he called on future
generations on to ensure that “government of the people, by the people, for the
people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Lincoln’s
inspiring words at Gettysburg came on November 19, 1863. A month earlier he had issued a
proclamation of national thanksgiving, setting aside the last Thursday in
November [it’s now the fourth Thursday] as a day for all Americans to remember
God’s kindness and grace to the nation. That first national Thanksgiving was
celebrated on November 26, 1863. Ever since then we’ve been proclaiming our
thanks for the “gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us
in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.”
Lincoln knew that Gettysburg wasn’t going to end the war.
In fact, it would rage on for nearly two more years. Thousands more would die
on the battlefield, from Spotsylvania, to the Wilderness, to the battle of
Atlanta. The carnage of Cold Harbor was yet to come. The brutal efficiency of
Sherman’s march to the sea was still on the horizon. Yet, even in the darkest
of these times, Lincoln pressed on with dogged faith, believing that the twin
goals of national unity and the unshackling of the oppressed and enslaved were
well worth the sacrifice.
By the time of his second inaugural in March of 1865,
Lincoln was a man who had aged like no President before him, or since. The
years of tragic conflict seemed to envelop him like a burial shroud. His
inaugural remarks were brief. It was time for the nation to forgive and heal and
it was time to reflect on how God’s hand had been woven into the great national
calamity. Lincoln concluded that the war was just retribution for the national
sin of slavery. As he put it, God would be fully justified to allow the bloodletting
to continue “until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by
another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it
must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”
Mercifully, the war finally ended on April 9th with the
surrender of Robert E. Lee at Appomattox.
As I consider Thanksgiving this year I’m troubled about the
country I love. America is treading a dangerous path. The nation’s political
course is now polluted by hate. Our
founding principles are being slowly eroded by a growing police and
surveillance state. Those who served and died so nobly at Gettysburg didn’t
give their lives so that government could become our ruthless taskmaster. They
served and died so that our founding principles would be preserved, protected,
and defended for all time.
But I’m also thankful. America keeps lurching and stumbling, but
God hasn’t given up on us. The principles of our founding are close to his
heart. He won’t abandon them, or us. Somehow, some way, he will lead us to the
place to where we return to those principles and to what Lincoln called “the
better angels of our nature.”
