Nature's
brush has painted many neighbouring trees
in
golds and and carmine reds. How beautiful!
David
Gilbert recently submitted a scene to our local Spectator
of
spectacular woodlands painted in yellows and orange.
Blue
skies dipped to a passive road where shadowed in black
were
parents, child and dog enjoying Nature's handiwork.
Predominant
in this scene, was the following Nature message:
A peaceful walk in the fall
Shows a story to us all.
Nature tells without a word
Seasons change with flights of
birds.
Sunny days shorten still
Warmer nights replaced with
chill
Wistful winds of crisp cool
air
Leaves of colour everywhere
Flowers rest and hide their
bloom
Safe for winter in their tomb
Until new day sleeps the land
The winter shall have its
stand.
But for now, the show remains
With us walking on this autumn
day,
Thanksgiving
(Canada)
Sometimes called Canadian
Thanksgiving,
distinguishes it from the
American holilday of the same name.
Our Thanksgiving celebrates the
harvest and other blessings of the past year.
On January 31, 1957, the Governor
General of Canada, Vincent Massey, issued a proclamation stating:
A Day of General Thanksgiving
to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest
with which Canada has been
blessed ~ to be observed on the second Monday of October.
Thanksgiving is a statutory
holiday in most of Canada, with the exceptions
being the Atlantic provinces of
Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador
and New Brunswick ~ where it is
an optional holiday.
Companies that are regulated by
the federal government,
(such as those in the
telecommunications and banking sectors)
recognize the holiday regardless
of its provincial status.
As a liturgical festival,
Thanksgiving corresponds to the English and continental European
harvest with churches decorated with cornucopias, corn, wheat
sheaves and other harvest bounty. English and European hymns are
sung on the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend.
The
Canadian Football League has usually held a national televised
Thanksgiving
Day Classic. It is one of 2 weeks in which the league plays on
Monday afternoons.
Kitchener-Waterloo Octoberfest
holds a Thanksgiving parade on the holiday broadcast on CTV. The
parade consists of floats...civic figures in the region...local
performance troupes...and marching bands.
Canadian
Thanksgiving coincides with the obsrvance in the United States of
Columbus Day and the American Indigenous Peoples' Day. As such,
American towns with high levels of Canadian tourism will often hold
their fall festivals over Thanksgving
/Columbus Day weekend
History:
According to some historians, the first celebration of Thanksgiving
in North America occurred during the 1578 voyage of Martin Frobisher
from England in search of the Northwest
Passage.
His third voyage, to the Frobisher
Bay area
of Baffin Island in the present Canadian Territoy of Nunavut, set out
with the intention of starting a small settlement. His fleet of 15
ships was outfitted with men, materials and and provisions. However,
the loss of one of his ships through contact with ice and freak
storms, which at times, scattered the fleet. On meeting again at
their anchorage in Frobisher Bay...Mayster Wolfall, a learned man
(appointed by Her Majety Counsel to be their minister and preacher,
made unto them a godly sermon, exhorting them especially to to be
thankful to God for their strange and miraculous deliverance in those
dangerous places...”
They celebrated communion and the
celebration of divine mystery,
was the first sign, scale and
confirmationo of Christ's name, death and passion
ever known in all these quarters.
If
You Want Happiness...
for an hour, take a nap;
for a day, go fishing,
for a week, take a vacation,
for a month, get married,
for a year, inherit a fortune,
all your life, it will truly come
by helping others.
The Greatest Gift to any human
being
is to give to another .~ the
gift of a good example.
(Unknown Author)
Author: Merle
Baird-Kerr, October 6, 2019
To
respond: mbairdkerr@cogeco.ca
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