Happy Thanksgiving! I'm leaving in 30 minutes to pick daughter Daena up from O'Hare, who is flying in from DC. This year will be the first year all 3 kids, wives, and 4 grandsons will celebrate Thanksgiving at our home. My Mom and Dad will also be here. It is going to be a happy day, for which I am very thankful to God.
Rich and I bought the boys matching Hawaiian outfits last February while on vacation, and they'll all wear them today when we take their Christmas photo for our card. Can't wait for that.
Been up since 4a. Listening to a Kris Kristofferson cd as I set the tables. Man, can he write... Me and Bobby McGee, Loving her was easier, Why me Lord?
But I digress. Thanksgiving, yes.
Daena wrote this year's Presidential Thanksgiving Proclamation, interjecting a reminder to respect for the sanctity of life as often as she could. Happy Thanksgiving!...
Thanksgiving Day, 2008
A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America
Thanksgiving is a time for families and friends to gather together and express gratitude for all that we have been given, the freedoms we enjoy, and the loved ones who enrich our lives. We recognize that all of these blessings, and life itself, come not from the hand of man but from Almighty God.
Every Thanksgiving, we remember the story of the Pilgrims who came to America in search of religious freedom and a better life. Having arrived in the New World, these early settlers gave thanks to the Author of Life for granting them safe passage to this abundant land and protecting them through a bitter winter. Our Nation's first President, George Washington, stated in the first Thanksgiving proclamation that "It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor." While in the midst of the Civil War,
President Abraham Lincoln revived the tradition of proclaiming a day of thanksgiving, asking God to heal our wounds and restore our country.
Today, as we look back on the beginnings of our democracy, Americans recall that we live in a land of many blessings where every person has the right to live, work, and worship in freedom. Our Nation is especially thankful for the brave men and women of our Armed Forces who protect these rights while setting aside their own comfort and safety. Their courage keeps us free, their sacrifice makes us grateful, and their character makes us proud. Especially during the holidays, our whole country
keeps them and their families in our thoughts and prayers.
Americans are also mindful of the need to share our gifts with others, and our Nation is moved to compassionate action. We pay tribute to all caring citizens who reach out a helping hand and serve a cause larger than themselves.
On this day, let us all give thanks to God who blessed our Nation's first days and who blesses us today. May He continue to guide and watch over our families and our country always.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim November 27, 2008, as a National Day of Thanksgiving. I encourage all Americans to gather together in their homes and
places of worship with family, friends, and loved ones to strengthen the ties that bind us and give thanks for the freedoms and many blessings we enjoy.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-first day of November, in the year of our Lord two thousand eight, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-third.
GEORGE W. BUSH
Comments:
Daughter inherits mother's good writing skills. Happy Thanksgiving to one of my pro life heroes. Let us think of ways we can keep on fighting the good fight even though the odds are against us. Lives depend on it. And let us remember that this life is just a dress rehearsal for the next and we really play to an audience of ONE.
Posted by: maria at November 27, 2008 7:26 AMHappy Thanksgiving to you and yours, Jill! We have much to be thankful to God for!!
Posted by: Carla at November 27, 2008 7:38 AMHappy Thanksgiving to Jill, the moderators the regulars and all who visit here!
May God richly bless you and keep you!
Posted by: Chris Arsenault at November 27, 2008 7:58 AMI am most thankful for Almighty God who loves me unconditionally and provides for my needs daily. I am also very grateful for this website and the pregnancy care ministry that God has chosen for me to be a part of. Have a wonderful day of being thankful!
Posted by: LauraLoo at November 27, 2008 8:54 AMHappy random thursday off to all our spiritually unaffiliataed persons of no specific ethinicity, culture, or nation of origin.
Try to ignore all the subliminal and overt religious symbols and overtones.
Enjoy the parades, the football games (go Cowboys, Go Aggies) and the food and your surviving family members.
yor bro ken
Posted by: kbhvac at November 27, 2008 9:22 AMJill,
Thanks for all that you do as a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother, a grandmother and a woman of God.
Thanks for providing this outlet where I can be free to express myself in the written word.
Thanks to all my fellow laborers in the vineyard of the LORD!
And JESUS, thank YOU, most of all, for causing the rain and YOUR blood to fall on the unjust.
yor bro ken
Posted by: kbhvac at November 27, 2008 9:35 AMHappy Thanksgiving everyone! I'm so excited to spend a day with the fam and eat a huge amount of food.
Ken, was your first post sarcastic? I couldn't tell- but if it is, this is not the place. Thanksgiving isn't necessarily religious holiday either, it's all about being thankful for what you've got and all people can celebrate that. Have a good one.
Posted by: prettyinpink at November 27, 2008 10:44 AMJill, I was wondering if your daughter is still going to be a presidential writer after the new president is in office. She's very talented and passionate.
Posted by: prettyinpink at November 27, 2008 10:45 AMJill's heroes Bob Enyart and Will Duffy, and a couple of other unemployed losers were out today, trying to disrupt Thanksgiving with yet another pathetic attempt at a publicity stunt.
Jill should be thankful that unlike her heroes Bob and Will, most people do not delight in making fools of themselves, so she can enjoy Thanksgiving in peace.
Jill,
I am thankful for this wonderful blog and for you and all who stand up for Life.
Let us persevere with hope and God's blessings. Let us try to find at least one thing to be thankful for each and every day. Happy Thanksgiving to all!
Happy day, everybody.
Posted by: Doug at November 27, 2008 11:30 AMHappy Thanksgiving! :)
Posted by: Bethany at November 27, 2008 11:45 AMI'm so excited to spend a day with the fam and eat a huge amount of food.
:: laughing ::
You go, PIP! Without putting too fine a point on it, uh, YEAH.
Posted by: Doug at November 27, 2008 11:48 AMKris Kristofferson? Watch out Jill, Kris is a big leftie and foreign agent (this is a well known fact) for Fidel Castro's "utopia" in Cuba - he has organized and raised millions for Cuba through concerts and events. I kid you not - his name is always one of the first in any big pro Cuba events around the nation. Cuba has one of the highest abortion rates in the world.
Thanks for posting the "Volition" video link - bought tears to my eyes.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Posted by: Mario mandingo at November 27, 2008 1:20 PMHey All,
Just couldn't let Thanksgiving go by without dropping in to say Hi! So, Hi! And Happy, Happy Thanksgiving.
(Doug, I see you're still flirting with PIP...lol)
I still pray for all of you...Doug & Hal...especially you two. God is awful sick of hearin' about ya...I think He'd rather hear from ya, but that's not my job anymore.
Hope you're all well. I'll check back in at Christmas...
Posted by: Anonymous at November 27, 2008 2:02 PMOh for heavens sake...even the "sign in" has forgotten who I am...that anonymous was me...MK...sorry.
Posted by: mk at November 27, 2008 2:04 PMPsalm 100
A Psalm of Thanksgiving.
1 Make a joyful shout to the LORD, all you lands!
2 Serve the LORD with gladness; Come before His presence with singing.
3 Know that the LORD, He is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
4 Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, And into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.
5 For the LORD is good; His mercy is everlasting, And His truth endures to all generations.
Thanks MK, best to you too! We miss you.
Posted by: hal at November 27, 2008 3:05 PMHappy thanksgiving, Marykay!
Posted by: Bethany at November 27, 2008 3:23 PMken,
I appreciate your posts -- especially the last line in the second post. :)
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Posted by: Jasper at November 27, 2008 8:01 PMMK *hugs* I hope today went okay. I know this time of the year is hard after the loss of a loved one (my dad's mom died just a few weeks before Easter Sunday).
I'm thankful for my Freedom of Religion, my wonderful nieces and nephews and that I got 85% of my CHRISTmas shopping done already (just finished buying two gifts online @ Target.com - for two of my nephews).
Now tomorrow to get my oldest niece her gift and I can breathe for awhile.
Posted by: LizFromNebraska at November 27, 2008 8:07 PMHappy and blessed Thanksgiving to Jill, all the prolifers and the pro-choicers too. Hope you had a wonderful day with your family as I did. We all ate too much but we are so grateful for each other and for God's blessings. We each shared what we are grateful for, that was awesome. I am so grateful for LIFE, I pray for all the precious, unborn babies to have the right to live, the most essential right, without the right to life we devalue every life.
Posted by: ProLifer L at November 27, 2008 8:13 PMHappy Thanksgiving to my American friends. I hope you have had a blessed one!
@Liz: Shhhh! don't say that - some of us have only started our shopping!!
God bless America!
Doug, I see you're still flirting with PIP...lol
Hey MK. I hadn't done much flirting lately, but PIP does command attention, since she's about ten billion light-years ahead of most people in college, not to mention most people, period.
When she really devotes time, thought, and energy to an argument, it's something to see, like John M. diving into human nutrition and biology.
Posted by: Doug at November 28, 2008 9:58 AMAw Doug, thank you! I appreciate it.
MK, nice to see you again! Hope you had a good Thanksgiving.
One thing I'm grateful for this Thanksgiving:
Anne Coulter has broken her jaw. It's wired shut.
"For on sight of the beast
They will run to the East
And the North and the West and the South,
And long for the day
When her head's on a tray
With a lemon to stop up her mouth!"
Turkey anyone?
Posted by: Janet at November 29, 2008 3:21 PM"Turkey anyone?"
Yllas already showed up on another thread, so we have it covered.
Posted by: Therence at December 1, 2008 12:30 PMGo to any culture at any time in history and you will find that basically, they are following the same laws.
MK, indeed, and deeming personhood at birth is the same.
.....
Buddhists might say that “we should not do to anyone what we wouldn’t want done to us” and Christians say “Do unto to others what you would have them do to you”, while pagans say “Do what ye will, harm ye none”…all different ways of saying basically the same thing. Even in Islam, the sentiments are the same. It is only in radical Islam (Truth being perverted) that you run into trouble. Same with the Catholic Church, when she went political 1500 years ago.
No argument there.
.....
I have just finished reading “The Abolition of Man”, by Chesterton. I highly recommend it. I always make notes in my books as I read them, and I kid you not, I have labeled the last chapter “Doug’s Chapter”. There are only 3 chapters in the book. The first chapter talks about the first group of people. They believe in Absolute Moral Truth. He calls it the Tao. The second chapter talks about the second group of people. They have created their own Tao. They don’t realize it, but all of their “common desires” are drawn from the first Tao. While they might describe it differently, they basically come to the same conclusions. The third chapter, or Dougs Chapter, talks about the third group of people. This group denies that there IS a Tao. They claim they every man is subject to his desires. Of course, in claiming that there is NO Tao, they have actually declared that this is their Tao. That there is no Tao, is a Tao.
I think the error there is the same as with Kreeft. There is a difference between seeing no proof of a thing, and "denying it exists." That's why atheism never has made sense to me, because there's no way they can really know they're right.
.....
He goes on to ask where their desires come from? What is the motive for their behavior? If you say it is instinct, then you are saying that you have no free will, because instinct is nature, and if you are following your instincts, you are following nature. If you are following nature, then you are like the animals. If you are like the animals, then nature controls you, you don’t control it.
Interesting stuff. I don't say it's instinct - I certainly see consciousness and decisions of volition. Our motives for our behavior is our desire, and that includes going to church, etc. "Where does the desire come from?" is a good question, as we've been talking about. And we certainly just plain do have desires, even to believe in unprovable things at times.
.....
In seeking to overcome all religious restrictions (live without a Tao) then you become enslaved to Nature and “natural tendencies”, rendering you simply part of nature. You are no longer free.
MK, I think that is based on the "denying" thing, whereas I don't do that - I just see some other people's ideas and no proof for them. I don't say that it cannot be.
.....
If you say that you have urges, but because you are human and have free will, you can overcome these urges, then you must tell us where this desire to overcome the urges comes from. If you say that these desires are just part of who we are, then you are once again saying that we just have urges, it’s part of nature and you are again becoming subject to nature. Do you see? You can’t follow natural urges and be free. The only way to be free is to be able to overcome these urges. To be master of these urges. But then you would have to give me a motive for overcoming them, and the motive cannot be nature.
We do have biological urges, but we also can indulge them or deny them per our free will. If it is a matter of "overcoming urges" then it's at least two competing desires at hand. The greater desire will win out, be it to satisfy the urge, or forgo it in orger to get or avoid something else.
People like to eat, but for most of us eventually the desire to not get fat or fatter, to not harm our health, etc., will win out over the desire for more food, as an example. We are "part of nature" but we still have free will, a lot of it, IMO, setting us apart from most other species on earth.
On not following nature and thus "being free" - I think it's all the same. Even the most spiritual person in the world is "following their nature."
Posted by: Doug at December 2, 2008 2:28 PMWell now, that was a major "Oops." Sorry about that - it was a post from a different board.
Posted by: Doug at December 2, 2008 2:30 PMLOL. Wow Doug, you need a nap or something!
Posted by: Bobby Bambino at December 2, 2008 2:33 PMTo say the least, my man.
Posted by: Doug at December 2, 2008 2:44 PM