Tag: gratitude

Thanksgiving

America, Family, History, Morality, Reason, Religion, Society & Culture, Values

Ah, turkey day 2021. I am thankful to have my family around the table with me today, 16 of us, and thankful that this tradition hasn’t yet been cancelled. I’m grateful to have a roof over my head, clothes on my back, an abundance of food on our table. I’m reminded that today we celebrate and mark the day when those who sacrificed so much and came precariously close to perishing thanked almighty God for a successful harvest and the preservation of their very lives so that we could have what we have today.

I am also thoughtful, however, of the forces that would destroy Thanksgiving, our history, our traditions, fundamentally transform our nation and society in a way that can only be described as evil. As they pursue their authoritarian, one world order nightmare, the writhing hydra of the Left is engaged in a Banzai Charge. I pray the result will be similar – the defeat and surrender of the human wave of hellhounds who maniacally rush to overwhelm the Right, the just and the good.

I wish I had a magic wand and could instantaneously make everyone as comfortable, happy and content as I. But no-one can, not the least a bunch of arrogant, megalomaniacal Leftists who think if they have all the power in the world that they can create a utopian society. THAT concept, is, in my opinion, inherently evil.

The war is engaged. The BS flag has been thrown down on the field. The Silent Majority is increasingly less silent as the blood from a thousand cuts, the heat from the flame underneath the frog in the pot have both reached the tipping point where we’ve had enough. In talking with people around the country and observing the countenance and behavior of the blue-state sheep surrounding me, I’m convinced that more and more people have now awakened to the reality of what is happening to us. More importantly, in more organized ways, the rugged, self-reliant and mind-my-own-business individualists of which we on the Right are made, have been united and begun to speak up in places like school board and town meetings. And now that the Left’s election lies, deceit and fraud have been fully exposed, we will see, thankfully, more of what occurred in Virginia and elsewhere during the elections earlier this month.

As the Leftist mob faces opposition for the first time, they, squealing and reluctantly, are starting to back off and stand down. Yes, there are still huge swaths of swamp yet to be cleared of infestation, and in the absence of an outside shock such as a World War III, it may take a couple of generations, but I sense a turning of the tide. It is slow, almost imperceptible, but it is turning.

And for that I am thankful.

I had a “heavy” conversation with one of my apolitical, extraordinarily busy, focused-on-fundamentals family members recently who, though aware of what’s happening, has the attitude that there is little any of us can do about it, that it’s the next generation’s world now and they’ll have to deal with it, that they have enough to worry about. Her implication was that no such principles exist, that change is inevitable and it is for each generation to decide for themselves what principles will or will not guide their lives.

I, on the other hand, believe that mankind is best served, and the greatest happiness, prosperity and peace has been in the past and will in the future be achieved by adherence to certain inalienable truths. MY attitude has always been, even when I was working 24/7/365 with my hair on fire, that it is my obligation, my duty, and my fundamental purpose now in my twilight years to do what I can to impart traditional values and teach those inalienable truths that persist and endure through all generations of time to my family and community.

What are these Inalienable Truth/Principles?

Let’s start with the Ten Commandments. I’m going to restate some of them in my own words.

There IS a God, and only One.

Don’t worship material things in lieu of God.

Don’t blaspheme.

Set Sunday apart as a day when you don’t work.

Honor your father and your mother.

Do not murder.

Do not commit adultery.

Do not steal.

Do not lie.

Do not be jealous of what others have. Be grateful for what you DO have.

There are many inalienable principles but the last one in the Ten Commandments goes straight to the heart of what Thanksgiving is all about.

Today, I’m grateful to be reminded of it.

This Thanksgiving

America, Family, Society & Culture

A week from today our family will be gathered together at our house to celebrate Thanksgiving. In chaotic times such as these there are two ways the gathering can go: either we’ll all use the occasion to whine and vent our frustrations or we’ll compartmentalize them out and reflect on the half-full cup. I’m hoping the latter will prevail.

Today’s Wall Street Journal had an article that I’ve clipped and will share with our family this year, and every year going forward. It’s entitled “When the Next Generation Has to Step Up on Thanksgiving”. It focuses on the baton-handoff that must occur as the family patriarch and matriarch age and are unable to host and manage the mayhem that always attends the holiday. But it also offers wisdom for every Thanksgiving. If followed, the chances of having the half-full cup scenario has a good chance of materializing. I highly recommend the article.

As for giving thanks and gratitude. Today I’m going to share a personal anecdote describing a seminal moment in my upbringing.  It informs what Thanksgiving means to me.

THE CAIRO INCIDENT

In 1967 (I was 15) my Mom and Dad and I took a trip to Greece and the Middle East. It was on our stop in Cairo that I had an experience that was one of those “I’ll never forget” moments that shapes a life.

We were walking out of the Nile Hilton hotel where we were staying. As we exited the doors onto the sidewalk a group of kids, 5 or 6 as I recall, came up to us begging for food or money. Ragtag, dirty, with pleading eyes, the group included a couple of teenagers.

This was the first time in my life I had ever been solicited by someone my own age. I had seen plenty of panhandlers before in Paris, in New York and elsewhere, and groups of little kids swarming around tourists, but never before had I experienced direct eye contact with kids my own size and age.

I expected my father, a veteran traveler and tourist who had been subjected to similar circumstances countless times during his worldwide travels, to simply keep walking. Instead, he turned back to the doorman of the hotel, handed him some money and asked him to personally ensure that these kids were fed a proper meal. The doorman, shocked and hesitant, reluctantly promised he would. As my dad turned to the group he pointed to the doorman, who explained to them what he was going to do. One of the teenage boys then turned not to my father, but to me, clasped his hands in prayer-like fashion, nodded his head and uttered in Arabic “Shukran” or “Thank You”, then put his arm around his little brother, who did the same. Later when we returned the doorman recounted how he had sent to the hotel kitchen for “guest lunchboxes” and distributed them to the children.

Irrespective of whether or not these kids were putting on an act, I was so taken aback and moved by the incredibly sharp contrast between my life and theirs that I vowed never again to complain about the food on my plate or the comforts I enjoy.

And so to this day, and for the rest of my life, I will be grateful for the privilege and opportunity of living in freedom in this greatest of all countries and for the incredible wealth we have: to include the feast of food, family and friends at Thanksgiving.

God Matters

Religion, Society & Culture

First, if you don’t believe in God or a Supreme Being, I’m not going to convince you there is one. But if you don’t, I urge you to go the country on a cloudless, moonless and no-light-pollution night and look up at the sky. Think of what you learned about probability and try to imagine what the probability is that we’re alone in the universe. To me it’s preposterous to suggest that there ISN’T a God!

God matters because He and His teachings are the basis for the standards by which we need to measure and conduct our lives – the basics of right and wrong, of good and evil, of truth and falsehood. The specifics of whether he is the Jewish God, or Catholic God, or Mormon God, or Muslim God is less relevant if one considers that virtually all religions and dogma subscribe to the fundamentals we know as the Ten Commandments. Without standards, there is only chaos, and without God, there are no standards.

God also matters because we need humility. Without humility, arrogance and the temptation to lord over others takes hold.  With all our advances, and with our advances coming at an increasing rate, it’s easy to see why we think we’re pretty special. It’s led to many people just assuming we don’t need God. And, since the array of circumstances we face vary widely, it’s tempting to think we’re better than someone who is less fortunate or who lives in less favorable circumstances than we. We need God to remind us that we’re really all just specs of dust and mustn’t get too big for our britches.

God matters because we need fellowship. Worshipping a Supreme Being with others who believe as we do gives us a sense of belonging that transcends ethnicity, politics, economic circumstances and all our other differences. We simply don’t do well by ourselves, as much as we’d sometimes like to think we do. Gathering together to acknowledge, pay homage to and invoke the blessings of God brings us together and helps us smooth those differences out.

God matters because we need to understand gratitude. Not to suggest for a second that I agree with anything Obama ever said, but borrowing on his phrase “You didn’t build that,” if you have success, comforts, joy, love, uplifting experiences and peace in your life, “you didn’t build that.” God had a hand in helping you. A dramatic sunset, a spectacular night sky…God (and most certainly not the government as Obama was suggesting) built those, not us. We need to be grateful.

Finally, God matters because there exist laws in the universe that we simply don’t understand yet. Notwithstanding the brilliant minds of scientists and philosophers, we still can’t say what happened BEFORE the Big Bang. And we still can’t comprehend an endless, infinite universe. Believing and trusting that there is a Being out there who knows more than we do and who has, who can, and who in the future can communicate His knowledge and expose new truth to us is not only comforting, but exciting. We should continuously try to get to know Him.

We need to look up at those stars from time to time and remember how small we really are…how insignificant compared to the vastness and power of an infinite universe and return to thinking about how we’re ALL related and need to help one another.

Today we know so much more than our grandparents new. And tomorrow, our grandchildren will know so much more than we do. Gaining knowledge with the help of a God who can reveal things to us and give us guidance as we progress…matters.

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