Choose to be happy even when life is not fair

Lincoln's Gratitude and Thanksgiving Proclamation

     Gratitude is a virtue.   It is a prized quality because people who are sincerely grateful or thankful  are likely more content with life and more appreciative of living.  An attitude of gratitude will help us more effectively deal with life’s challenges because we will find the positive in the negative, see the light through the darkness.  If we have the trait of gratitude, then by practice or habit we will routinely express our thankfulness to our Maker and to those who teach, touch, and treasure us.  Despite hardship and even injustice, those with gratitude in their heart get through the hard times intact by accepting the bad that comes with the good and recognizing that strength and character are developed in the fire of adversity. 

Abraham Lincoln issued the Thanksgiving Proclamation
 in 1863 amidst  manytrials.

     In 1863, during the devastation and destruction of the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Thanksgiving Proclamation that established the last Thursday of November “as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.”  Lincoln issued the Proclamation after heeding the pleadings of Sarah Josepha Hale, a 74 year old magazine editor who had spent 15 years begging presidents to adopt a uniform day of thanksgiving across the nation.  The first Thanksgiving Day under the Proclamation was celebrated just one week after Lincoln delivered the historic Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery.   At Gettysburg, a turning point for the American Civil War that took place during three days of brutal fighting in early July of the same year, the Union and Confederate Armies suffered 50,000 causalities, including 8,000 fatalities.  Lincoln could have easily ignored the pleadings of “The Mother of the American Thanksgiving” given the dire circumstances of the war.  [Learn more about Sara Josepha Hale at http://www.quiltersmuse.com/sarah_josepha_buell_hale.htm.]

     If the war was not bad enough for the President, the Lincolns had lost their beloved 11-year-old son, Willie, to tuberculosis the year before.  Photographs of Lincoln as the war progressed reveal in the lines and shadows of his face the incredible toll living and leading was having on him.  Lincoln, if anyone did, had legitimate reasons to wait to issue the Thanksgiving Proclamation until better times. It is amazing, therefore, that during such a trying period --a time when the United States was divided against itself in a war that threatened the nation and the President was suffering from the weight of the war and family crisis—Lincoln had the strength of character to turn the people’s minds to gratitude.   In the Proclamation, Lincoln describes the many blessings received by the people of the nation and then exclaims that “[i]t has seemed to me fit and proper that [the blessings or bounties] should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people.” 

     We could all benefit from the gratitude expressed by Lincoln even when trials and tribulations surround us.  Choose to be happy, even when life is not fair.  If you do, you will have a grateful and happy heart.  The full text of the Thanksgiving Proclamation follows (a link to the third page of the original is found at the bottom).  I hope you will read it and, in doing so, consider the circumstances under which it was issued and ways you can live with more thanksgiving and gratitude in your life.

By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

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 unequaled 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, tranquility and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

William H. Seward,

Secretary of State

 (See this link for a copy of the third page of the original Proclamation: http://www.archives.gov/global-pages/larger-image.html?i=/press/press-releases/images/lincoln-thanksgiving-proclamation-3-l.jpg&c=/press/press-releases/images/lincoln-thanksgiving-proclamation-3.caption.html. )

Live the Golden Rule

See the article named "Live the Golden Rule and the Seven Billion published below.  The following diagram focuses on Key 12.

Statue at the Vietnam Memorial honoring the sacrifice of so many.

The Golden Rule and the Seven Billion

“’Tsze-kung asked, saying, 'Is there one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one's life?'  The Master said, 'Is not Reciprocity (‘loving-kindness’ in one translation) such a word? What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.’”  (Analects, 15:23--a collection of the sayings of Confucius).

The principle of Reciprocity taught by Confucius is akin to the precept of the Golden Rule.  In its many forms, the Golden Rule or the ethic of human reciprocity appear to be longstanding, universal concepts found in cultural, religious, or belief systems around the world.  The exact words used to define the principle vary from source to source but the essence of the truths are fairly consistent--love or serve your neighbor as yourself and treat others the way you want to be treated.  Christians proclaim:  “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them:  for this is the law and the prophets.”  (Matthew 7:12).  Jewish law says:  "What is hateful to yourself, do not do to your fellow man.” (Talmud Shabbat 31a).  Albert Einstein, in an article he wrote titled “Religion and Science,” said that “[t]he high destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule, or to impose himself in any other way.”  (See the article at http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/einstein/einsci.htm.)   Finally, in what some have referred to as the Platinum Rule, many believe that we should treat others the way they want to be treated, meaning we must empathetically look to the   circumstances, beliefs, and needs of the person we seek to help and react accordingly.  Many more specific examples from Greek philosophers, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism and others could be given here to show the universality of the ethic of Reciprocity and the Golden Rule.

On June 11, 1963, John F. Kennedy gave a speech known as the “Civil Rights Speech.”  In the discourse he described how the Alabama National Guardsmen, in the face of defiance and threats, were sent to the University of Alabama to enforce a court order calling for the admission of “two clearly qualified young Alabama residents who happened to have been born Negro.”  Ultimately, he noted, peace prevailed largely because of the conduct of the students of the University  “who met their responsibilities in a constructive way.”  President Kennedy continued his powerful speech by turning the focus to the Golden Rule:  “I hope that every American, regardless of where he lives, will stop and examine his conscience about this and other related incidents.  This Nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds.  It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened …. In short, every American ought to have the right to be treated as he would wish to be treated, as one would wish his children to be treated.”  (See the full speech at http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jfkcivilrights.htm.)

The Gravesite of John F. Kennedy who was killed serving his nation.

The essence of Kennedy’s great speech is captured in a document signed in Chicago in 1993 by over 140 prominent spiritual or religious leaders who were part of the Parliament of the World’s Religions; it is titled “Towards a Global Ethic: An Initial Declaration.”  The Declaration “represents an initial effort -- a point of beginning for a world sorely in need of ethical consensus….[and a] text offer[ed] … to the world as an initial statement of the rules for living on which the world's religions can agree.”  The following statement, which clearly commences with the Golden Rule, gives an expansive vision of how we can more nobly live and give together in the world:        

“We must treat others as we wish others to treat us. We make a commitment to respect life and dignity, individuality and diversity, so that every person is treated humanely, without exception. We must have patience and acceptance.  We must be able to forgive, learning from the past but never allowing ourselves to be enslaved by memories of hate. Opening our hearts to one another, we must sink our narrow differences for the cause of the world community, practicing a culture of solidarity and relatedness.  We consider humankind our family. We must strive to be kind and generous. We must not live for ourselves alone, but should also serve others, never forgetting the children, the aged, the poor, the suffering, the disabled, the refugees, and the lonely.”  

(See the full document at http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma/globalethic.html.)

                Look around you.  Look within you.  Do you see evidence of the Golden Rule in modern your world?  Do you happily or begrudgingly live principles of reciprocity—the idea of mutual living, relatedness, and giving back?  A recent YouTube video showed a group of Utah citizens join together to bravely rescue a motorcyclist who was trapped under a burning vehicle after a collision (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAtXDlttNxg).   No one had to take action.  The joint acts of the bystanders were voluntary and included personal dangers.  No one knew the victim personally.  But many heroic citizens, despite the risks, chose to help a helpless man—just as they would hope others would do for them in the same situation.  That selflessness epitomizes the Golden Rule and the human spirit that makes the world a better place for all of us to live.    Every day, somewhere, there are stories of people giving their time, talent, and energy to others. 

We make a mistake when we allow ourselves to get caught up in unending media alarmism that makes it look like everyone is corrupt, that all people are selfish, and, in essence, that the sky is falling.  Don’t believe it.  The Golden Rule is alive and well.  It is up to us individually and collectively to make it a centerpiece of our humanity.   For you the question is how do you live it?  Do you look for chances to help others, to reach out and make a difference?  You appreciate it when others do kind things for you so pay such kindness forward and experience the joy of making a difference.  Be kind to those who theoretically make no direct impact in your life.  Treat all with dignity and respect.  Find or create opportunities to uplift the downtrodden, bring joy to the distraught, and provide sustenance to those without means and resources.  Live with empathy and act with passion to make the world a better place.  In doing so you will find a level of joy, peace, and satisfaction that can come in no other way.  Live the Golden Rule with loving-kindness as though the seven billion people on earth right now depend upon it - because they do!