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The Theology of the Turkey: How a Bird Became America’s Sacred Symbol · Theology Made Podcast

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to The Theology Made Podcast.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Jordan.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Today,
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  SPEAKER_00: we're going to look at the theology of the turkey,
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  SPEAKER_00: how a bird became America's sacred symbol.
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  SPEAKER_00: Every November,
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  SPEAKER_00: somewhere between the Macy's parade and the post-meal nap,
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  SPEAKER_00: a strange ritual unfolds.
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  Across millions of American homes,
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  we all stop to eat the same bird,
• 0:28
  turkey.
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  No other creature so reliably finds its way to the center of
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  the nation's table.
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  prayed over,
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  carved with ceremony,
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  and then photographed like an altar sacrifice.
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  SPEAKER_00: But why Turkey?
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  SPEAKER_00: Why did this very odd,
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  SPEAKER_00: awkward-looking bird,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is neither majestic like the eagle nor sentimental like the dove,
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  SPEAKER_00: become the sacred centerpiece of Thanksgiving?
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  SPEAKER_00: And as you can imagine, the answer is far more than culinary.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's a story that begins with wilderness and ends with worship,
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  SPEAKER_00: winding through Puritan piety,
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  SPEAKER_00: colonial identity,
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  SPEAKER_00: and even the theology of providence.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: The turkey isn't merely a meal, it's a mirror of America's faith.
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  Long before Europeans arrived,
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  the wild turkey was already central to Native American life.
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  Tribes all across hunted turkeys for meat and used their
• 1:14
  feathers for clothing and ritual.
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  The bird symbolized abundance,
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  a creature that gave its life so the tribe could thrive.
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  SPEAKER_00: When the colonists arrived,
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  they saw flocks of these massive birds roaming the forest in
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  such numbers that one
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  SPEAKER_00: Puritan wrote,
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  SPEAKER_00: they darken the skies when they take their flight.
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  SPEAKER_00: For starving settlers,
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  the turkey became the first tangible sign that God had not
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  abandoned them.
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  SPEAKER_00: When their imported English chickens and pigs died off,
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  SPEAKER_00: the forest provided wildfowl and near limitless supply.
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  SPEAKER_00: To the Puritan mind, this wasn't coincidence.
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  SPEAKER_00: This was providence.
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  God had stalked the new world with ready meat,
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  a literal answer to their prayer for daily bread.
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  And early accounts from Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay,
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  they almost read devotional.
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  SPEAKER_01: We found the woods full of turkeys and other fowl,
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  SPEAKER_01: which the Lord hath given for our sustenance.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: A theology of the turkey was already forming,
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  SPEAKER_00: one that saw creation itself as covenant provision.
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  SPEAKER_00: At the 1621 harvest feast,
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  SPEAKER_00: later mythologized as the first Thanksgiving,
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  SPEAKER_00: wild fowl were plentiful.
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  SPEAKER_00: Edward Winslow notes that the settlers went on fowling,
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  SPEAKER_00: returning with enough birds to serve the company almost a week.
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  Historians think that meant ducks,
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  geese,
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  and yes,
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  gobble-gobble,
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  turkeys.
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  SPEAKER_00: To the pilgrims, meat wasn't just nourishment, it was sacramental.
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  SPEAKER_00: Every roast was an echo of Levitical offerings,
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  SPEAKER_00: a smoke of gratitude rising to heaven,
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  SPEAKER_00: and so feasting was an act of theology.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's a visible confession that all provision comes from God.
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  SPEAKER_00: But the turkey carried special resonance.
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  It was native,
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  not imported,
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  and the bird represented this land,
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  a wilderness turned to promise.
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  SPEAKER_00: Eating turkey was like eating the evidence of divine faithfulness.
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  SPEAKER_00: Think about those gigantic grapes from the Old Testament in Canaan.
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  SPEAKER_00: It marked the shift from exile to belonging.
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  SPEAKER_00: And by the 1700s,
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  wild turkey had become domestic livestock across New England
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  and the Mid-Atlantic.
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  SPEAKER_00: They were bred, traded, and exported back to Europe.
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  SPEAKER_00: where the bird became fashionable at Christmas feasts.
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  SPEAKER_00: Ironically,
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  the English began calling it turkey because merchants from the
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  Ottoman Empire had
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  SPEAKER_00: introduced similar fowl through turkey,
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  SPEAKER_00: a case of mistaken identity that just kind of stuck.
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  As settlers domesticated the wild turkey,
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  theologians domesticated their gratitude.
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  SPEAKER_00: Early Puritan sermons warned against excess.
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  SPEAKER_00: Feasting could become idolatry if the feasts eclipsed the giver.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yet by the 18th century,
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  ministers were preaching that joyful enjoyment of creation was
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  still an act of
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  SPEAKER_00: praise.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so the turkey moved from the wilderness symbol to household staple,
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  mirroring that theological evolution from fear of pleasure to
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  thanksgiving for it.
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  SPEAKER_00: The wild grace of providence became the daily bread of domestic piety.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then came Benjamin Franklin.
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  SPEAKER_00: inventor, philosopher, printer, and part-time theologian of birds?
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  SPEAKER_00: In 1784,
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  Franklin wrote a now-famous letter to his daughter defending
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  the turkey's honor
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  SPEAKER_00: after Congress adopted the bald eagle as America's national symbol.
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  He called the eagle a bird of bad moral character,
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  a thief,
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  a scavenger,
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  lazy by nature.
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  SPEAKER_00: Whereas the turkey,
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  SPEAKER_00: he wrote,
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  SPEAKER_01: is a much more respectable bird,
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  SPEAKER_01: and with all,
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  SPEAKER_01: a true original native of America.
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  SPEAKER_00: And behind his satire lay something older than Enlightenment wit,
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  SPEAKER_00: a Puritan intuition that holiness hides in the homely.
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  The same instinct that made colonial mothers teach gratitude
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  over supper now made a
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  SPEAKER_00: founding father elevate a barnyard bird as a moral ideal.
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  By the 1800s,
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  as Thanksgiving became institutionalized,
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  the turkey took center stage.
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  SPEAKER_00: Cookbooks from the era,
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  SPEAKER_00: like Lydia Maria Child's The Frugal Housewife,
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  SPEAKER_00: listed roast turkey as the defining dish of the autumn feast.
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  Illustrations and magazines showed families gathered reverently
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  around the bird as
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  SPEAKER_00: if around an altar.
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  And for a new industrial nation,
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  the Thanksgiving turkey was theology made visible.
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  SPEAKER_00: The table became the sanctuary, the carving knife, the liturgical tool.
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  SPEAKER_00: The head of the household?
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  SPEAKER_00: Well, you probably guessed, the officiating priest.
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  SPEAKER_00: 19th century sermons used this imagery explicitly.
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  SPEAKER_00: The family table is the domestic altar of America.
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  SPEAKER_00: Gratitude had moved from church to kitchen, from pulpit to plate.
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  SPEAKER_00: The turkey had become a sacrament of citizenship,
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  SPEAKER_00: the ritual by which a diverse people remembered providence in common.
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  SPEAKER_00: Underneath the cheer, however, lingered a darker note.
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  SPEAKER_00: Every Thanksgiving turkey is a stand-in,
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  SPEAKER_00: a bloodless substitute for the sacrifice once offered on Israel's altars.
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  SPEAKER_00: Theology of Thanksgiving has always involved death transformed in a life.
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  SPEAKER_00: Blinken's 1863 proclamation formalized the holiday.
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  In the very year,
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  hundreds of thousands were dying on Civil War battlefields.
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  SPEAKER_00: The turkey on the table became a strangely fitting emblem.
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  SPEAKER_00: The life laid down so that others might be nourished.
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  SPEAKER_00: The feast held in the shadow of loss.
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  And in that sense,
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  the turkey tells the gospel story better than it realizes.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's the humble creature,
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  SPEAKER_00: lifts it up for the sake of the community,
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  SPEAKER_00: the nourishment that unites enemies at one table.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's not majestic, but it's sufficient.
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  And in its sufficiency,
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  it points beyond itself to the giver of all grace.
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  By the 20th century,
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  the bird that once symbolized survival had become an icon of
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  abundance.
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  SPEAKER_00: Industrial farming made turkeys cheap and predictable.
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  Yet the theology embodied in this ritual still whispers through
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  the noise of
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  SPEAKER_00: parades and football,
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  SPEAKER_00: you're dependent creatures,
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  SPEAKER_00: you live by gifts,
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  SPEAKER_00: you did not earn.
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  SPEAKER_00: Every carving of turkey is,
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  SPEAKER_00: whether we know it or not,
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  SPEAKER_00: a confession of faith,
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  SPEAKER_00: faith in provision and community,
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  SPEAKER_00: and in a creator who still fills the earth with good things.
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  If the eagle is the bird of American pride,
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  the turkey is the bird of American providence.
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  It reminds us that strength isn't in soaring above the world,
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  but being rooted in it.
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  SPEAKER_00: Humble, ordinary, generous, and given.
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  SPEAKER_00: So,
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  SPEAKER_00: this Thanksgiving,
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  SPEAKER_00: when you bow your head over a golden roast,
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  SPEAKER_00: remember the long theology baked into the meal,
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  SPEAKER_00: the wilderness that became a table,
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  SPEAKER_00: the grace that turned survival into celebration,
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  and the God who still provides feathers in the forest and food
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  on the plate.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because in its own clumsy,
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  SPEAKER_00: gobbling way,
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  SPEAKER_00: the turkey has been preaching the same sermon for 400 years.
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  SPEAKER_00: Gratitude.
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  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's the truest part of freedom.
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  SPEAKER_00: Hey,
• 6:54
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• 6:56
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• 6:58
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