Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.
—Annie Dillard
In November 1929, just one month after the famous stock market crash which set in motion the Great Depression, an editorial in The Household Magazine encouraged their readers to take heart and have courage as they faced the unknown.
“Thanksgiving Day was meant to be something more than a mere period of time between Wednesday and Friday of the last week in November. It may be something more than a holiday, or it may have none of the characteristics of one. What it is depends on the state of mind.”
By the third Thanksgiving of the Great Depression in November 1932, American homemakers and the women’s magazines they read had passed through the same desperate psychological stages a person experiencing profound loss endures—shock, denial, anger, bargaining and great grief –before settling in for what is often the longest stage of any traumatic change—depression. A new Democratic president-elect, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was getting ready to take over the White House, but it would be another few months before FDR’s rousing Inaugural Address reminded Americans that "all we have to fear is fear itself.”
There would be seven more lean Thanksgivings of economic uncertainty followed by five years of the world at war. How did our grandmothers and great-grandmothers drag themselves out of bed to make biscuits for breakfast? An image of my Kentucky Granny rolling out dough in her salmon-pink chenille bathrobe and slippers has come to represent grace under pressure in the archives of my heart.
You might have approached this Thanksgiving with dread for the future and sorrow for what is happening now. When deep discouragement comes, I comfort myself by thinking of the long line of heroic women who came before me—not only those in my family, but every woman settler, explorer, adventurer, native American mother and prairie homemaker, who tamed wild lands and wild times to make homes for those they loved. I particularly love to meditate on the first band of Pilgrim women.
There were 18 women on the Mayflower, and although none of them died during the crossing from England to Massachusetts; by the time of the first “Thanks Giving” meal, a year later in 1621, there were only 4 women who had survived the brutal winter, spring sowing and autumn harvest. Four very tired women who needed to take care of 50 men and children daily.
With the men almost entirely focused on building houses and the village, the women had so many chores, they performed in shifts. For aside from cleaning and cooking, there was plowing and planting, preserving and putting away, caring for livestock, making soap and candles from tallow (animal fat), tending the sick and creating herb medicinals. There was so much work that they lived on one portion’s grace and if they didn’t drop down dead with their hand to the plow or wither away in a nighttime sweat from a succession of diseases contracted on the voyage, they took it as a sign that God meant for them to go on. And you know what, they were right.
I love the bare bones simplicity of this truth. Sometimes in life, all we can do is put one foot out of the bed and then in front of the other, literally. I figure if you wake up in the morning, you’re meant to go on—continue at what you’re doing and ask Heaven to show you what you’re doing wrong, if you are. Ask for confirmation of what you’re doing right. Ask for what you need and want. Ask to be taught the right questions. Ask to be answered. Ask for the Divine Plan of your life to unfold through joy. Ask politely. Ask with passion. But ask! Ask to be heard. Ask for a blessed respite from daily crises. While you’re at it, ask for a deeply personal miracle—you know, the one you need so much you’re afraid to even pray for it? But if we can’t learn to ask for help, we’re going to be left on our own.
What do you think the prayers of the Pilgrim women were? How about, “Please God, help me.” Thank you that I’m here, but why? How can four women take care of 50 men and children?” Well, those sound like pretty good openers.
Here’s what I prayed for this Thanksgiving. May Heaven help us both understand this truth so deeply that it becomes sacred marrow that needs no words. Soul memory. Women are born with a blessed DNA—the genetic code of resilience, strength, ingenuity, creativity, perseverance and determination—that is what I call feminine spiritual moxie. Our Destiny, Nature and Aspirations are Divinely endowed, so why wouldn’t we be given the wherewithal to fulfill them?
While our historical attention is drawn to the pilgrims and early settlers of this wild and beautiful land, we cannot overlook the women who were here before the pilgrims arrived. Author Dina Gilio-Whitaker, an Indigenous researcher and activist broadens our horizons on the heroism and humanity of Native American women. Dina shares the authentic stories of Native American women we should know more about, such as Nanye-hi (Nancy Ward) a cherished Cherokee leader granted the designation of Ghigau, which Dina explains, means “most beloved woman” and also “war woman.” As Ghigau, she sat in council meetings among both the war and peace chiefs. “Nanye-hi was in reality a diplomat of the highest order. In negotiations for the Treaty of Holston in 1781 she famously reminded U.S. treaty commissioners that “…we are your mothers; you are our sons.’”
So this Thanksgiving week whenever anything happens that triggers the feeling of angst or distress, take a deep breath and silently ask yourself a few questions as I do when I’m in the midst of trying to do everything and accomplishing nothing:
Is my family safe today?
Is there a roof over our heads today?
Did I have to chop wood to keep warm today?
Tomorrow will I have to carry water from a creek 2 miles away?
Did I have to shoot the turkey for our meal today?
Sadly, what has fallen through the cracks of social and domestic history over the last seventy years is the very sacred need to keep up women’s morale on the home front through whatever social, political, or economic turmoil or upheaval we are going through and every decade brings what seems like a new one. But they’re not because we haven’t learned very much from history and until we do and history becomes herstory, we’re going to continue experiencing cosmic déjà vu.
Women have always cared for the world, one way or another, but we still don’t know how to take care of ourselves. If we can’t do one, then we can’t do the other. I just love to share with you what I’m seeking: Divine connection and the courage to go on, wherever the pioneer trails lead us. We will not, cannot forget the legacy of loved passed down to us, our daughters, and granddaughters, from generations of beautiful, brave, and heroic women from centuries before, who reach through the portcullis of the past watching over us and encouraging us to go on, further than they could even imagine.
So come, my grateful sisters, come to gather together. Offer grace for the bounty of goodness. Raise the song of harvest home, the glass of good cheer, the heart overflowing with joy. We have so much for which to be thankful, so much about which to smile, so much to share. So much, that in this season of plenty, we can embrace the season of relinquishment. All we have is all we need.
But let us ask for one thing more: the gift of grateful hearts that will not forget what God has already done in our lives. Not only invited us to the feast, but made us feel so blessed and welcomed, we have the moxie to ask, please Mother Plenty, can I have some more?
May peace and plenty always be your portion. With dearest love, thanks for your sharing my words with other women that you love and blessings on your courage.
XO SBB