Ghia—how the words Prudence and Thanksgiving apply to food, gratitude and this holiday season.

 Faith Matters—How to Love Your Enemies with Arthur Brooks https://www.faithmatters.org/p/how-to-love-your-enemy-arthur-brooks?utm_source=publication-search

Hooray, GIA here.

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I'm this week's host of the

Creative Spiritual Journey podcast

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where Judy and I talk about those

things that bring us joy for me.

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I find joy by connecting with

nature, connecting with Jesus

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Christ and our heavenly parents.

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Seasonal living, and all the bits of magic

and wonder I come across while navigating

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this remarkable journey we call life.

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I am excited today because today I want

to talk about prudence and Thanksgiving.

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Does that sound a little odd to you?

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Of course.

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Talking about Thanksgiving

sounds appropriate.

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The US National Holiday is only

about a week away, but prudence, what

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does that have to do with anything?

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Let me explain.

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As you know, this year I did

a series about the four dues

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I see in the word of wisdom.

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But I left out one part that I

think is important in doctrine

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Covenant section 89 verse 11.

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It says, every herb in the season

thereof and every fruit in the

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season thereof, all these to be

used with prudence and Thanksgiving.

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In my list of the four dues in

the word of wisdom, I included

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eating seasonally with prudence

and Thanksgiving as the second due.

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and I talked about eating seasonally

and podcast 77, but I didn't

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have time to talk about eating

with prudence and Thanksgiving.

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So that is my plan for today.

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Because before studying the word

of wisdom, I never fully considered

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what these words, prudence and

Thanksgiving had to do with food.

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So what do you think

about the word prudence?

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It's not one we often use these days,

which makes it seem old fashioned to me.

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I think it sounds like the name of

a character we might find during the

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regency period of Pride and Prejudice.

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A character expected to be

modest, sensible, and cautious.

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But when I looked up the

definition of prudence, I found

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something completely unexpected.

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At first, there were the usual references,

the ability to govern and discipline

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oneself, having good skills and judgment.

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Cautious and circumspect.

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Then I found the synonym ity.

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What?

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I didn't even know what that

word meant and had to look it up.

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Sagacity means having good mental

discernment, good judgment.

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That's a great definition of prudence.

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Good judgment, sagacity or sagacious.

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I want to be sagacious.

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It sounds much less stuffy than prudence.

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Still, I wasn't ready to give up

on Prudence, so I looked up the

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1828 definition, the definition

that would have been more common

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during the life of Joseph Smith.

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Here I found my favorite

definition of prudence, which

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is wisdom applied to practice.

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Did you hear that?

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Wisdom applied to practice?

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Prudence means doing

something with wisdom.

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It's not just enough to simply

have wisdom to use prudence.

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We must do something with that wisdom.

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It sounds to me like a call to action.

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We can't just read the word of wisdom.

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We must live it.

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Don't just eat food.

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Eat with wisdom, eat wisely.

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I love it.

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Okay, let's move on to

the word Thanksgiving.

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Here's what's interesting.

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Thanksgiving, the holiday wasn't a

thing in the life of Joseph Smith.

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Did you know that?

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In fact, the national holiday, as we

know, it wasn't even established until

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18 63, 30 years after Joseph Smith

received the word of wisdom revelation.

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There was a regional custom

of Thanksgiving, but this

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was only practiced in the New

England States of Massachusetts.

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Connecticut and New Hampshire, not

in the places Joseph Smith lived.

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I'm going to talk more about the

establishment of this holiday in a

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few minutes, but first I want to talk

more about this word, Thanksgiving

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and why Joseph Smith chose to use it.

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Why didn't he just say

gratitude, eat with gratitude?

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I mean, that sounds like the obvious

word to me, but as I wondered about

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this, I realized Joseph would've been

familiar with the word Thanksgiving

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because it's frequently used in the

King James version of the Bible.

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Here are a few examples.

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Let us come before his presence

with Thanksgiving and make

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a joyful noise unto him.

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With Psalms, enter into his

gates with thanksgiving and

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in his courts with praise.

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Be thankful unto him and bless his name.

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Every creature of God is good

and nothing to be refused if

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received with thanksgiving.

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In every prayer and supplication

with thanks, let your requests

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be made known unto God.

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So while Joseph Smith wasn't educated

and perhaps didn't have a wide

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vocabulary, he certainly would've been

familiar with the word Thanksgiving.

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But in my study, things became more

interesting as I was looking into the

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etymology of the word Thanksgiving.

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Thanksgiving is a compound word,

which comes from middle English,

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And instead of being Thanksgiving

with the accent on the second word,

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the way we say it for the holiday,

It could be pronounced Thanksgiving

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with the accent on the first word.

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Can you hear the difference in my voice?

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Thanksgiving.

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Thanksgiving.

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So this original meaning would

literally have meant the act of giving.

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Thanks.

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Thanksgiving.

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Oh, this is interesting because

we have another action word.

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We don't just want to

have thanks or gratitude.

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We want to give our thanks

as in give thanks to God.

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Give thanks to the earth

for producing our food.

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Give our thanks to the

person who cooked it.

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Do you find this fascinating?

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I had no idea I was going to find

these action words when I began

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studying prudence and Thanksgiving.

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Wisdom needs to be applied.

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Thanks.

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Needs to be given.

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We need to take action.

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So here's where I wanna go back to

the story about the establishment of

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Thanksgiving as a US national holiday.

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Have you ever heard

about Sarah Josepha Hale?

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I am not sure with all the American

history I studied as a child, how I

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missed learning about her, but as I

recently discovered, she was one of

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the most influential women of the 18

hundreds, and I think she's fascinating.

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born in 1788 in New Hampshire.

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Sarah was fortunate enough to be

raised in a family that believed in

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education for girls, thank heavens.

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At 25, she married David Hale

and quickly had five children.

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Then after only nine years

of marriage, she was widowed.

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At the time, she put on black

morning clothes and wore them

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for the rest of her life.

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In 1827, she published a novel

about slavery, making her one of

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the first women in the United States

to have ever published a book.

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Isn't that amazing?

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This literary success led her to

becoming the editor or editor.

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As she preferred to be called of the

Ladies magazine, one of the first

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magazines written for and by women

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This magazine was eventually bought out

by Godley's Women's Book, which Sarah

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edited until she retired at the age of 89.

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Sarah is famous for being the

author of the children's poem.

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Mary Had a Little Lamb.

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Did you ever wonder who wrote that poem?

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Now you know, she was an advocate for

women's education and helped found

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Vassar College, an all women's school,

and she also worked to establish the

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monument at Bunker Hill and to preserve

Mount Vernon George Washington's home.

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But here is the part I really

wanted to tell you about.

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As I said earlier, Sarah

was born in New Hampshire.

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One of the New England states,

which means unlike Joseph

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Smith, she grew up celebrating

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While she was working for Godleys,

she began to feel the strain of

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division going on in the country and

got the idea that the United States

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needed a national day of gratitude.

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A day when Americans across all regions

and political divisions could unite.

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So you know what she did?

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She petitioned the president at the time.

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It was Zachary Taylor when

her petition was turned down.

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Did she give up?

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Nope.

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She petitioned every president

for the next 17 years.

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Until finally in 1863,

Abraham Lincoln proclaimed

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Thanksgiving, a national holiday.

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Do you love her?

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Tenacity?

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It's awesome.

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And her willingness to take action.

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That's what I'm talking

about when I say prudence and

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Thanksgiving are action words.

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Sometimes we tend to think that as

individuals, it doesn't matter much what

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we do because who's going to notice?

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What difference is it going to make?

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But I think we can make a difference.

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And the first step is to take action.

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Now, I don't doubt that everyone

listening to this podcast is

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taking action in some form.

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Because I happen to know that everyone

listening to this podcast is an awesome

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person and I want you to take action

wherever is appropriate for you.

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You do you.

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But I just want to share two

recommendations of where I would love

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to see everyone take action this season.

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Take these as you will, and know that

this is just me trying to take action.

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Right?

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Okay, number one, I love that Sarah

Hale's intention with a National Day of

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gratitude was to help unite the country.

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Can you imagine the fear she was

facing with a civil war on the horizon?

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Now, I am not super political.

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I definitely have my opinions, but I don't

have a hard line for one political party.

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Still right now with everything that

is going on in the world, if there was

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anything I could do, it would be to

help unite people to help unite this

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country with this in mind right now in my

relatively small sphere of influence, I

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want to invite you to listen to a podcast

from Faith Matters called How to Love Your

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Enemy with Arthur Brooks, it provides a

small but powerful way that each of us

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can take action in creating more unity.

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I will include a link in the show note.

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The second point I want to share is

more in line with the nature connection

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theme I have for this podcast and is

focused on these powerful words, prudence

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and thanksgiving as we find them in a

revelation given for our time about food.

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My invitation is to look for ways to

act in the name of wholesome food,

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First of all, buy it, eat

it, share it, talk about it.

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I truly believe that our food connects

us to nature, and connecting to nature

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has the potential to connect us in

unique, unexpected ways to Jesus

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Christ and our heavenly parents.

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I believe how we eat makes a

difference in our lives, both

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physically and spiritually.

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I hope you believe this.

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Honor it and use it.

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It's my assertion that giving thanks to

God is not something we merely express In

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prayer, we show our thanks for our food in

how we eat and how we feed our families.

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it's my goal to eat with prudence,

care, wisdom, thoughtfulness, ity.

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I want to recognize limits.

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The Earth's ecosystems are delicate,

wastefulness and greed upset its balance.

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I want to practice sustainability and

only take what can be replenished.

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I want to act with Thanksgiving and

prudence, And I believe I can do

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this by showing my God reverence

for the earth as it sustains me as

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I wrote the word reverence just now.

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I was reminded of the talk reverence

for sacred things by Elder Ulysses

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Sore in his talk, he says, showing

reverence for sacred things gives meaning

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to much of what we do every day and

strengthens our feelings of gratitude.

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he was talking here about how reverence

applies to our temple worship and our

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homes, but the idea of how showing

reverence gives meaning to what we do

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every day makes me think about food.

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We eat food every day.

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So I believe as we show reverence for

our food, our food becomes sacred.

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And as I eat from this earth, I want to

meet each meal with both Thanksgiving.

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The act of giving thanks and

prudence wisdom applied to practice.

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To eat with Thanksgiving is To approach

it with reverence, and to share our

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feelings with God in prayer and action.

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To act with prudence is to act with

wisdom, to choose wisely and to

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honor the limits of the land that

sustains us Together, prudence and

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thanksgiving turn a simple meal

into a mindful reverend practice.

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Judy and I know that your time is

precious and that you have many choices.

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We love that you have chosen to walk

with us for a few minutes as we navigate

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this remarkable journey of life.

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This Thanksgiving, it's my prayer

that you will remember and apply

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the words of Benjamin Franklin.

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Well done is better than well said.

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Namaste.