Preparing for Thanksgiving

 The trees have turned.  Most have lost their leaves.  Invigorating cool air has spilled across the land.  Families are getting ready for Thanksgiving.  Some prepare for children to come home.  Others make plans to travel.  Thoughts turn to turkey, dressing, giblet gravy, pumpkin and pecan pie. Football is in the air.  I like Thanksgiving and the American traditions that go along with it.

 Thanksgiving is special to the American experience.  From the time we are children, we are taught to remember the Pilgrims who feasted with their Indian friends in 1621, giving thanks for their survival in the new world. In some schools children will walk out on stage wearing flat brimmed pilgrim hats and painted faces to re-enact the first Thanksgiving in front of adoring parents.

 George Washington signed the first Thanksgiving proclamation in 1789.  But the official annual holiday began in 1863 when Abraham Lincoln set aside the fourth Thursday of November as a day for giving thanks.  When he issued his proclamation, our nation was embroiled in Civil War. Young men by the thousands lay dead on the battlefields.  Families were gripped with grief.  But a wounded nation found solace for its soul by seeking a grateful heart.

 In times of prosperity and want, in times of war and peace, during the Great Depression, the Great Recession, we have paused as a nation on this final Thursday of November to remember and to be thankful.  For this one day, at least, we make sure that the homeless and the hungry are fed. On this day, we lay down our tools, close our computers and gather around tables with those whom we love the most.  We simply pause to enjoy one another and the goodness with which God has blessed us.

 Nothing is more important than cultivating a grateful and thankful heart.  We all experience blessing and loss.  God sends his rain on the just and the unjust.  The faithful and the unfaithful must weather the same storms. We all experience life and love that we do not deserve.  We will all suffer disappointment, injustice and pain.  Illness will come. The loss of loved ones will come.  The same circumstances sow the seeds of bitterness and resentment, thankfulness and gratitude. The former leads to death.  The latter leads to life. 

 The Bible is clear about the importance of thanksgiving.  The Psalms are filled with thanksgiving and praise.  Jeremiah envisioned desolate Jerusalem restored with gratitude saying: “the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voice of those who say, ‘Give thanks to the Lord of hosts, for the Lord is good, for His lovingkindness is everlasting.’" (Jer. 33:11).  Paul wrote, “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.”  (Colossians 2:6). 

Response To Confusing Times

  Five years ago, on a beautiful evening in Colorado, we opened our windows to a refreshing breeze of mountain air.  We listened to the stillness, interrupted by the distinct sounds of howling.  We stepped outside.  It is not entirely unusual for coyotes to howl in the open spaces of the Front Range that sweep up to the foothills and the towering snow-capped mountains.  But these howls were coming from the wrong direction. They were echoing from the streets of our neighborhood.

 What we were hearing was a phenomenon that swept our nation during Covid.  People emerged from their “stay at home” shelters at 8 PM in the evening and howled!  For some it was a protest, a way to “let off steam” from being cooped up and shut in. But for most it was a way of connecting with strangers and shouting support for those who continued working on the “front lines” of the coronavirus crisis. 

 The next day this message appeared in our neighborhood blog: “I work in the Emergency Department for UC Health.  … Last night as I parked in our garage, I heard a riot of howls from around our neighborhood … I want each of you howlers to know that your support helped lift the tired heart and soul of someone who somedays wonders if what I did was enough.  Last night it brought a tear to my eyes and a big lump in my throat.  It is a pleasure to be your neighbor, and an honor to help support our community.” 

 Covid taught us to stick together, encourage one another and care for our neighbor.  During these confusing days of 2025, we need to remember that lesson.  Last night I went outside after dark to put out our trash.  While standing in the driveway, an Amazon van pulled up and stopped.  A young woman came bouncing out and handed me a package my wife had ordered. I thanked her for doing her job and making the delivery. She gushed her thanks.

 While she made a few more stops at the end of our cul-de-sac, my neighbors across the street called my name.  Their 2-year-old daughter knows me.  When the Amazon driver stopped again across the street, I urged them to join me, all 5 of them: the 2-year-old, her mother, grandmother, grandfather and their snow-white bulldog, Rooney.  We gathered around as she returned from our neighbor’s porch.  I told her we were a “committee” from the neighborhood to thank her for delivering our packages. She melted in appreciation and said we made her day.

 During these trying times, countless people continue going about their jobs: making deliveries, serving fast food, stocking the stores, hauling off our trash, repairing our streets, keeping the wheels turning.  Thousands of government workers showed up for two months without pay. The one thing we all can do every day in every circumstance is encourage each other.

 We need to heed the instruction of Scripture: “Therefore encourage one another and build up one another, just as you are doing” (1 Thess. 5:11).  “Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus” (Romans 15:5).

If You Believe

 A scientist placed a number of fleas in a jar and they immediately jumped out. He then placed a clear glass plate over the top of the jar.  The fleas continued to jump, smashing their heads into the invisible barrier.  They kept this up for some time, jumping with all their might, crashing into the glass and falling back.  They slowly adjusted the height of their jump to avoid crashing into the invisible lid.  The scientist then removed the glass lid, and the fleas remained in the jar, jumping just short of where the lid had been, unable to clear the lip of the jar and escape.

 The jumping fleas are a parable of how we adjust our expectations.  Like the fleas, we become conditioned to limitations imposed by others and, sometimes, imposed by ourselves.  We no longer try to extend beyond the comfort of what we have done before and we remain trapped by traditions and learned behavior.

 Wilbur and Orville Wright were sons of an itinerant preacher, a Bishop in the United Brethren Church. Like their father, they were gentlemen who neither smoked, drank nor gambled.  But they learned to dream.

 When the Wright brothers arrived at Kitty Hawk, NC, they found an almost deserted island with constant winds, lots of sand and about fifty homes, mostly occupied by descendants of shipwrecked sailors.  The residents wore hand sewn clothes and lived in homes with scarce furniture and bare floors scrubbed white with sand.

 Wilbur boarded with the William Tate family and set to work assembling his “darn fool contraption,” as the locals called it.  Tate later said, “We believed in God, a bad Devil and a hot Hell, and more than anything else we believed that same God did not intend man should ever fly.” 

 The Wright brothers became fast friends with the Tate family and the outer banks people, who helped them immensely. Within 3 years, on December 17, 1903, the Wright brothers lifted into the air. Six years later,   Orville Wright circled the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor and the Wright plane flew over the Eifel Tower in Paris. Aviation was born.  The world has never been the same.

 Jesus was constantly urging his disciples to think beyond their limited expectations.  Often He referred to the twelve disciples as “you of little faith.”  He challenged them, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move.”  (Matthew 17:20).

 Jesus chose twelve of the most unlikely men to follow Him.  They were common fishermen, common laborers and a tax collector. Without Jesus they would have lived out their lives in their small villages unnoticed.  History would have taken no note.  But Jesus taught them to believe beyond the limitations of their day.   Armed with faith, confident in the power that raised Jesus from the dead, they turned the world upside down and changed the course of human history.

 “Nothing,” Jesus said, “is impossible with God.”