It's the Friday after Thanksgiving and also the day of the week when I share a quotation intended to be informative or enlightening. Today's comes from the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes. My inspiration, though, was the contrasting Thanksgiving Day pronouncements of Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
I'm not sure I had ever watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade before yesterday, but apparently I've been missing something: It's very good. I saw a good portion of it yesterday and caught Al Roker while on the parade route taking a phone call from President Biden and first lady Jill Biden.
Roker introduced the segment by referring to Thanksgiving "as the most American of holidays," which even in our weird and woke political era seemed to be a safe statement -- at least for the audience tuned into that event.
Speaking from Nantucket, where the Bidens traditionally spend the holiday, the president had this to say: "On this Thanksgiving, Al, we have to come together. We can have different political views, but we have one view. The one view is that we're the finest, greatest nation in the world. We should focus on that."
In answer to a follow-up question, Biden added:
"We should focus on dealing with our problems and being together and stop the rancor. We have to bring the nation together and treat each other with a little bit of decency, and I think that's where the vast majority of the American people are."
The vast majority? That's a nice thought. I hope it's true. But one particular American wasn't having any of it. Hours before the sun was up, Donald J. Trump took to Truth Social to pass along his Thanksgiving Day sentiments. Here is what he wrote, in its entirety:
Happy Thanksgiving to ALL, including the Racist & Incompetent Attorney General of New York State, Letitia ‘Peekaboo' James, who has let Murder & Violent Crime FLOURISH, & Businesses FLEE; the Radical Left Trump Hating Judge, a ‘Psycho,' Arthur Engoron, who Criminally Defrauded the State of New York, & ME, by purposely Valuing my Assets at a ‘tiny' Fraction of what they are really worth in order to convict me of Fraud before even a Trial, or seeing any PROOF, & used his Politically Biased & Corrupt Campaign Finance Violator, Chief Clerk Alison Greenfield, to sit by his side on the ‘Bench' & tell him what to do; & Crooked Joe Biden, who has WEAPONIZED his Department of Injustice against his Political Opponent, & allowed our Country to go to HELL; & all of the other Radical Left Lunatics, Communists, Fascists, Marxists, Democrats, & RINOS, who are seriously looking to DESTROY OUR COUNTRY.
I certainly understand the stress the former president is under. Anyone in his situation would feel some bitterness toward the press, his prosecutors, and his critics in both political parties. To say otherwise seems disingenuous. On the other hand, when I compared Donald Trump's online rant to Joe Biden's pleasantries, a song popped into my head.
The song is "Turn! Turn! Turn!" a chart-topper released by The Byrds around this time of the year in 1965. It was written in 1959 by folk singer Pete Seeger and recorded by both Seeger and The Limeliters in 1962 and by Judy Collins in 1963. But it was the The Byrds who made it an international hit.
Not to diminish the great Pete Seeger, but because almost all the lyrics are a verbatim rendition of the King James Version of the first eight verses of Ecclesiastes, chapter 3, writing credit is properly shared with the ancient Hebrew author of Ecclesiastes -- whoever that is. (According to rabbinical tradition, King Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes, while modern biblical scholars insist that it was probably authored several hundred years after Solomon's death.)
That debate is irrelevant to our aims this morning. What matters is the sentiment of the verses. In the song, a chorus is added to the biblical text, ("Turn! Turn! Turn!") as well as a signature line at the ending line about peace ("I swear it's not too late").
Other than that, its wisdom is enduring:
To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven:
A time to be born and a time to die
A time to plant and a time to reap
A time to rend, and a time to sew
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak
A time to love, and a time to hate
A time of war, and a time of peace
And that is our quote of the week.
