Thanksgiving and Fast Day

[a_reasonable_man]

Every year, as Thanksgiving approaches, I wish that the holiday could be stripped of its false Pilgrim/Wampanoag trappings and restored to its original meaning, as simple a day of gratitude. I think this will probably only happen, however, if we revive the lost holiday that was once paired with it, and which made its meaning plain: Fast Day, which fell on a Thursday in April. I've been making a quiet push to revive this old Puritan day of atonement since 2003, when I led a group of my divinity students on a Fast Day observance, called in response to the Iraq war. I've written about Fast Day before, its history and meaning, here:

https://divinity.uchicago.edu/sightings/thanksgiving-day-remember-fast-day-dean-grodzins.

Comments

[sovay]

I've written about Fast Day before, its history and meaning, here.

Your link appears to be broken, which grieves me, because I really want to read what you say about Fast Day.

[a_reasonable_man]

Thanks for letting me know. Oddly, the link stopped working when I embedded it in the text.

Looking at this column, I'm reminded of how the Onion, back in the day, used to run a regular letter from its "Publisher Emeritus," T. Herman Zweibel, with a picture of him dated "circa 1911." My picture for this article should be dated, "circa 1999."

[sovay]

Thanks for letting me know. Oddly, the link stopped working when I embedded it in the text.

If there was a glitch in the HTML, that'd do it. Thanks for putting up the link proper.

My picture for this article should be dated, "circa 1999."

You're still recognizably you.