Saturday, November 21, 1998

Why not fast and pray rather than feast and pay

By DAVID WATERS

Scripps Howard News Service

Thanksgiving wasn't always celebrated the fourth Thursday in November.

In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt set it a week earlier to lengthen the Christmas shopping season.

How American.

Move the holiday on which we thank God for all the stuff we have, just so we can buy more stuff.

Thankfully, Roosevelt's sales gimmick lasted only three years. Right after the early Thanksgiving in 1941, he signed a bill moving the holiday to where it is now, the day on which we celebrate the Dallas Cowboys' 10th game of the year.

Thanksgiving Day is more than Football Day, of course. It also is Gluttony Day -- the day our homes turn into all-you-can-eat turkey bars, the eve of our annual national buying binge.

This is how we thank God for our blessings. We gorge and splurge.

Thanksgiving used to be my favorite non-religious holiday, until I realized it used to be this country's most important religious holiday.

That's because it was the only nonsectarian religious holiday, the one holy-day we all could celebrate together, regardless of race, creed, color, gender or address.

It could be again, if we shift the focus from giblets and Gimbels back to God.

"It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God," President George Washington proclaimed in 1789 when he made Nov. 26 a day of national thanksgiving -- to God.

That was a good start. Another president came up with a better way to give thanks collectively to God.

"We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven," President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed when he made April 30, 1863, a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer.

"We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown; but we have forgotten God."

An annual day of national fasting will jog our memories.

Abstain from food, even for a day, and maybe we'll be more inclined to "own our dependence upon the overruling power of God," as Lincoln said.

Fasting isn't merely about controlling our intake of food; it's about controlling our appetites, the instincts and temptations of the flesh.

Our national appetites are particularly voracious during Thanksgiving, our national day of excess. We may say grace before we eat that day, but we're not looking for God, we're locked in on turkey and touchdowns.

We may be thankful for what we have on Feeding-Frenzy Thursday, but we're more thankful for what else we can get on sale on Shopping-Frenzy Friday.

Thanksgiving is the perfect time of year to practice some national self-control and acknowledge God's control.

Imagine the impact: The richest nation in history giving thanks to the Great Provider, not by feasting and paying, but by fasting and praying.

Fasting is the way to say thanks. It's diversity-friendly. People fast for religious reasons, but also for their health. Fasting is nonsectarian, a custom practiced by all major religions. And fasting is simple. You don't need an oven timer. You don't need a cable box. You don't even need a credit card.

The first Thanksgiving in America in 1619 was entirely religious.

The next one ought to be, too.

(David Waters can be reached by e-mail at: waters(at)gomemphis.com.)