Franksgiving: When Thanksgiving Politically Divided the United States

I hear many people these days talking about how divided the United States is politically, and how they dread political conversations during Thanksgiving dinner. Since it can hardly be avoided to talk politics in certain situations during Thanksgiving, my solution is to remind people that this country has always been politically divided in one way or another, and that Thanksgiving itself at one time was politically divisive as well. And what made Thanksgiving politically divisive at one time, is now no longer an issue at all, but an accepted tradition that unites all Americans. What was it that made Thanksgiving politically divisive? It was something labelled "Franksgiving" at the time. Read about it below, via the Wikipedia article on the subject, compare it to the political divide we have today, see how such a major issue of the time for which the then President of the United States, who was criticized for being like Hitler because of this issue, was heavily criticized, and has today become an accepted tradition that unites all Americans, because time eventually gives us a short memory. It should remind us that history should be remembered in times when we feel something unique is going on, for nothing is new under the sun.

The Rational Man According To St. Anthony the Great

By Dr. Constantine Cavarnos

Introductory Remarks

St Anthony (ca. 250-356 A.D.) is one of the great masters of the spiritual life of Eastern Christendom. He has been held in the highest esteem by Christians of the East from his own time down to the present. One of his eminent admirers was St Athanasius, who knew him personally and wrote a biography of him, which is one of the best sources of information we have about him. Two other outstanding admirers of this great saint are St Macarius, Metropolitan of Corinth (1731-1805) and St Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain (1748-1809). They have included at the beginning of the Philokalia, which was compiled and edited by them and published in 1782, a work containing many sayings and observations which have traditionally been attributed to St Anthony.

Holy Martyr Porphyrios the Mime of Ephesus

St. Porphyrios the Mime (Feast Day - November 4)

Verses

Porphyrios was adorned by the sword,
Brightly adorned with the purple of blood.

Saint Porphyrios lived during the reign of Emperor Aurelian (270-275), and was from the city of Ephesus. From a young age he was raised in the theater with the mimes, namely those who acted out every form and movement of people.

Once he followed the count of Alexandria to Caesarea, and there he acted out the Holy Baptism of the Christians, where he was baptized by another mime who falsely pretended to be a Bishop. In this way they mocked the mysteries of the Christians.

Dr. Jekyll and His Conscience

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

By Robert Louis Stevenson

"In each of us, two natures are at war – the good and the evil. All our lives the fight goes on between them, and one of them must conquer. But in our own hands lies the power to choose – what we want most to be we are."

The Role of Conscience in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart"

"Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God! --no, no! They heard! --they suspected! --they knew! --they were making a mockery of my horror!-this I thought, and this I think. But anything was better than this agony!"

Possibly the most obvious and most stated of all themes presented in this tale is one of guilt. The guilty conscience of the narrator is typically viewed as the central, overarching theme of the entire story. It presents a very unique set of questions about the duality of the narrator's character, and perhaps Poe's point is that fine line that exists between the good and evil in all of us. This being, if the narrator is the insane, horrible, psychopath that we think he is, does the sane part of his being show through in his guilt? Is this a redeeming quality, or is this just the act of a raving lunatic, thinking he can hear the heart of a dead man through the floorboards?