“If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough.”
― Meister Eckhart (1260-1328)
Most of us know the Thanksgiving story: Pilgrims, Plymouth Rock, the first feast. But it wasn’t that simple. It took over 300 years to become an official holiday, largely due to one woman who believed gratitude could heal America.
Sarah Josepha Hale, a 19th Century writer and magazine editor, spent decades championing this idea through her writing. None of it achieved traction overnight. She kept promoting it, year after year.
Eventually, she realized it would take a Presidential Proclamation. In 1863, she wrote to Abraham Lincoln, suggesting a national, secular Thanksgiving as a way to help reunite the country.
Lincoln complied soon after, though it took until the FDR Administration to become official.
What matters isn’t who made it official but that the best ideas – even obvious ones like national gratitude – don’t spread themselves. They need someone willing to champion them relentlessly, someone who sees beyond the idea to its deeper purpose.
That’s what Hale did.
Sometimes the most radical act is seeing what could be, long before others do and not giving up on it.
Happy Thanksgiving.
