Next week’s Thanksgiving feast is far from a “religious” holiday, in spite of its ecumenical overtones; its tenuous origins are in an English Reformation tradition carried on by the pilgrims who arrived at Plymouth in1620, an affront to the Catholic liturgical calendar. Puritans celebrated days of fasting and days of feastingmost notably the day of feasting at the end of the fall harvest—in gratitude for God s provision. But we really have President George Washington to, um, thank for this day of thanks. Washington proclaimed November 26, 1789, “a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with ...