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Every year, in Plymouth, Massachusetts, there is an annual Thanksgiving celebration to commemorate God’s blessings and the help Native Americans gave to the first pilgrims. However, in 1970, The United American Indians of New England (UAINE) also began holding an annual remembrance, strategically held on Thanksgiving Day, called the Day of Mourning. It is a yearly protest of the injustice that Native Americans have suffered at the hands of the U.S. Government.
When I heard that Thanksgiving Day had been chosen as the day of the protest, I was deeply saddened because I truly believe in the power of thanksgiving and gratitude to transform a life for the better, as well as the opposite, damaging effects of resentment. An annual event to remember and re-live offenses does not seem liberating to those who have suffered injustice. Instead, it actually seems to keep people perpetually enslaved to history’s atrocities while fueling a culture of resentment. It becomes a cycle that can never really end.
For example, in 1998, on the 29th Day of Mourning, one of the event speakers, Moonanum James, who was the Co-Leader of the United American Indians of New England said this:
“Some ask us: Will you ever stop protesting? Some day we will stop protesting: We will stop protesting when the merchants of Plymouth are no longer making millions of dollars off the blood of our slaughtered ancestors. We will stop protesting when we can act as sovereign nations on our own land without the interference of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and what Sitting Bull called the “favorite ration chiefs”. When corporations stop polluting our mother, the earth. When racism has been eradicated. When the oppression of Two-Spirited people is a thing of the past. We will stop protesting when homeless people have homes and no child goes to bed hungry. When police brutality no longer exists in communities of color. We will stop protesting when Leonard Peltier and Mumia Abu-Jamal and the Puerto Rican Independentistas and all the political prisoners are free. Until then, the struggle will continue.”
What he’s really saying is they will never stop protesting.
The problem is we live in a sinful world, full of injustice. If any of us want to go back far enough in own history, we’ll find ancestors who were victims of injustice, and therefore, ourselves entitled to resentment.
For example, if you go back in the history of England, it is a story of conquest and assimilation. The Romans conquered and occupied significant parts of Britain, the Anglo-Saxons (Northern Germanic tribes) conquered the Roman/Britons, the Viking invasions took large parts of Great Britain from the Anglo-Saxons, only to be followed by the Norman invasion and conquest. The History of the UK is a patchwork of conquest, assimilation, and injustice.
The U.S. is no different. Do you think Native Americans just sprung up from the ground and always lived here? No, archeologists and geneticists tell us the first Americans emigrated here from Asia. As they formed into tribes those tribes fought with each other for territory and resources; some tribes were assimilated, some went extinct. Others grew stronger and became more dominant. A particularly interesting example is the Comanche nation who grew to dominance over other tribes through a technology they acquired from the Spaniards – the horse. And of course, the invasion and conquest by European, and then American settlers is well documented.
Pick a continent and you’ll find a similar story. All of these and countless other conquests from around the world were marked by the injustice of violence, torture, and slavery. Sadly, that is what it means to live in a fallen and sinful world. But what this also means is that if you want to define yourself by offense or slight, you can find a reason.
If you are here and your ancestors suffered under the injustice of slavery in the United States, you have a choice to make. While many voices call for you to define yourself by that historical injustice, I’d invite you to choose, instead, the life-giving perspective of gratitude. Your ancestors truly did suffer and experience a horrible injustice, but because of their suffering, you grew up in one of the greatest centers of prosperity and opportunity in world history. Who knows? You might have been spared Apartheid in South Africa, or famine in Somalia, the genocide in Rwanda, or even the present-day terror of Boko Haram in North Africa. It all depends on where and how you choose to look. And that is true for every one of us.
Cultivating gratitude is never about denying our need to overcome injustice but is rather about denying injustice the power to overcome us!
Anyone can find a reason to be resentful…Maybe your parents favored a sibling. Maybe you were passed over for a scholarship or promotion only to see it go to someone with less talent. Maybe you are paid less than you’re worth. Maybe you’ve been ignored, disregarded, or shut out. You have a choice to make. We all can find reasons for resentment, but they’re never helpful – and most disturbing of all – they always close our eyes to the gifts and opportunities that God has placed right in front of us!
Listen to what the Apostle Paul wrote to Jewish and Gentile believers who were experiencing persecution and oppression (The Jews, you’ll remember, had been under various foreign occupations for almost 400 years). He told them this:
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 1Thes. 5:16-18
If giving thanks was God’s will for them, I’m pretty sure it’s God’s will for us. Gratitude is powerful! Recognizing and giving thanks for God’s blessings overcomes the soul-withering effects of resentment, inspires hope as we envision the future, creates room for the healing balm of forgiveness. Gratitude is a gift and we have a choice to make. Let’s choose the life-giving freedom of gratitude!