As a little boy of 7, I became a choir boy in St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Brockton, where I sang till my voice suggested I move to being an altar boy. Going to church is something I have done all my life and I’m probably better for it.
The hymn we sang at Thanksgiving is enduring and unforgettable. In earlier years, when I was a public school teacher, youngsters in our rural schools gathered in our dining rooms at the start of Thanksgiving Day vacation and all joined in the hymn:
“We plow the fields and scatter
The good seed on the land,
And it is fed and watered
By God’s Almighty Hand.
He sends the snow in winter,
The warmth to swell the grain,
The breezes and the sunshine
And soft refreshing rain.”
In our small rural school in Gill this became a tradition. A prayer was spoken by one of our teachers. The occasion was marked by quiet ceremony, an attitude of reverence.
In due course, the American Civil Liberties Union interfered and engineered an end to it. They argued successfully in courts of law that public expression of Godly reverence was banned.
On one American ship in the second World War on Thanksgiving Day, the crew excepting men on watch, should assemble for prayer service — Protestant, Catholic, Jew, contributed a player.
Reverence prevailed.
One of the crew, Felsted by name, was from Utah. He was a Mormon who sang in the Tabernacle Choir. As a trained baritone, he sang:
“Dear Lord and Father of Mankind,
Forgive our foolish ways!
Reclothe us in a rightful mind —
In purer lives thy servcice find,
In deeper reverence praise.”
This is Thanksgiving — in deeper reverence praise! This is the time for it.
Paul Seamans is a permanent resident of the Charlene Manor nursing home. He is a retired elementary school principal and writes the Said and Done column for The Recorder.