To Tallahassee and Back: Giving Thanks for Our Great State and Nation

I saw a license plate on the back of someone’s car yesterday.  It must have announced the owner’s opinion of the great state in which we live.  The plate said simply, “Flor-Duh.”  This derisive term, or variations of it, came into vogue during the 2000 presidential recount.  Sadly, it is used whenever bad things occur in our state, especially those that revolve around the elections process.  During the recently ended general election I heard commentators and comedians all across the country make jokes about Florida’s slow pace certifying the presidential race, the Congressman West recount and other political events of the season.

That car’s owner has all the right our nation allows to pay the extra money so that he/she can affix that plate to his/her car.  People have died on soil both foreign and domestic so that particular individual’s personal thoughts can be expressed in such a way.  While I may not agree with that person’s opinion of Florida I do respect their right to express that opinion, no matter how wrong they may be.  I am sure they don’t agree with the statement I just made, and that is okay.  We both have the right to believe the way we do.

This blog post is really not about vanity license plates.  It is, however, a recognition that we live in a nation that allows us to wear our opinions, our faith, and our core beliefs on our sleeves, or automobiles, if we choose.   How many times do we see bumper stickers on cars that we either agree wholeheartedly with, or disagree with in a great way?  Because of the wisdom of the Founding Fathers, and the men and women who have sacrificed on the battlefields and seats of government, we can slap a piece of plastic coated paper on our rear window, or attach a metal plate to the rear-end of our car, with whatever message we want (as long as it is not obscene).  Free speech does have its limits and I think most would agree that is a good thing.

I am a traditionalist as far as Thanksgiving goes.  I like to believe that the account of the first Thanksgiving feast I was taught about in grade school is really what happened between the Pilgrims who came to our shores fleeing religious persecution and the native peoples of the New World.  Skeptics may raise their doubts but I don’t.  The Pilgrim’s desire to live in a land in which they could worship as they chose, and the social agreement they made among themselves as expressed in the Mayflower Compact, laid the foundation for the birth of these United States.  It is not too much of a stretch to see that the Declaration of Independence had its seeds in this agreement among those settlers nearly four hundred years ago.

The New World offered those first Pilgrims a place in which they could honor God as they saw fit.  The patriots during the Revolution 150 years later birthed what would become the greatest nation on the face of the earth.  Countless lives have been lost to keep hold of the freedoms bequeathed to us by the likes of George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

We can thank Abraham Lincoln for declaring a national day of thanksgiving during the midst of the Civil War.  President Lincoln, upon issuing his proclamation for a day of Thanksgiving, wrote, in part: “It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people.  I do, therefore, invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.”

The next time you see a license plate or a bumper sticker you like or perhaps don’t like, remember that it took great sacrifice for the freedom to put that message on that vehicle.  The next time you walk into church or house of worship, please remember that you are free to do so because of the lives wounded or lost over the years to preserve that right.  Finally, no matter how mean or humble your circumstances may be, you live in a state and a nation that is populated by people who will fight fiercely for your right to live free.

From the Giordano Family we pray that you and yours have a blessed Thanksgiving Day.  There is no better place on earth in which to live.  I am sure there are countless people living under the iron rule of repression that would do anything to join us.  Let’s pray for them and all the men and women in uniform serving to keep us safe so that we may celebrate yet another Thanksgiving Day as an American and as a Floridian.