WACKY WEDNESDAY WISDOM: I Won't be Skipping Thanksgiving

      Let me make it clear from the beginning. I am not complaining. I love Christmas. It’s the most wonderful time of the year. When discussions about favorite holidays arise, Christmas usually nabs the blue ribbon. For obvious reasons.

     It took a little longer than usual, but this year, it happened on November 8th. The first Christmas song of the season. 48 days before Santa is scheduled to arrive up on the rooftop. 

     In fact, they played three Christmas songs in a row that day. That I left the radio tuned to that station tells you I do indeed appreciate and enjoy Christmas music. However, in this case, the three songs I heard are as follows and I quote: Sleigh Ride, Winter Wonderland, and Jingle Bells.

     None of the three says anything about the child in the manger but rather extol the virtues of enjoying snow and wintry mix weather and such. I like these songs but I couldn’t help but think they were a little out of place when I looked at the outdoor temperature indicator and it informed me the temp was 75 degrees outside. 

     Not quite enough to inspire me to put chains on my tires and travel over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house. Yet I appreciate the sentiment and I’m certainly not a Grinch of any sort.

     But I have a minor concern here. I’ve expressed before my distaste for how commercialized Christmas has become and how we are expected to shop, shop, shop and spend, spend, spend in order to save Christmas and the economy at the same time. 

     In that vein, they try to get us to start earlier every year. The earlier we start, the more we’ll spend, goes the theory. But I’m concerned that if this trend continues year after year, the Christmas season will eventually begin sometime in mid-October and we’ll brush over Halloween and Thanksgiving along the way.

     Halloween we could probably survive without but there’s no way I’m gonna allow Thanksgiving to be minimized. You’ve got Pilgrims, turkey, dressing, pumpkin pie, parades, hunting, and football to consider. Church services where we sing classics like “We Gather Together” and that sorta thing. 

     But most importantly for me, it’s a time when my family gathers around the table and expresses our appreciation to Almighty God for all His many blessings. 

1 Chronicles 16:34 says it best- "Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, His love endures forever". 

     I’m thankful for many things, one of them being that Honest Abe Lincoln established Thanksgiving as a national holiday while he was president. And though I truly love Christmas- mainly because of the Child- I’ve always awarded my personal blue ribbon to Thanksgiving. 

     Economists worry not- I will engage in my fair share of commercialism this Christmas. And I’ll sing along with all the Yuletide tunes in due time. But for now, I intend to enjoy every aspect of the whole Thanksgiving scene- football, turkey, pumpkin pie and most of all, counting my blessings.  

     

WACKY WEDNESDAY WISDOM: Can't We All Just Get Along?

      Please, if you're reading this, keep reading. Most people skim the first line or two of a post and move along. But I want you to see this. A friend sent me a quote and a verse a day or two before the 2020 election and it deserves to be read. I'm writing this the day after the election but before the outcome has been determined. Therefore I have no political angle. But I do have a spiritual angle. And that angle is this: Can't we all just get along? 

     Back in 1774, John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Church, said this about elections: 

1. To vote, without fee or reward, for the person they judged most worthy 2. To speak no evil of the person they voted against, and 3. To take care their spirits were not sharpened against those that voted on the other side.”

Matthew 5 reminds Christians to be salt and light to the world around them when it says: "You are the salt of the earth . . . You are the light of the world . . . let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in Heaven."

Whether your candidates got elected or not is not the main issue. The main issue is whether we as Christians will be salt and light when we get our way as well as when we don't. If we gloat when our candidates win instead of reaching out to understand the opposing view, we are of the world and not simply in it. And we are called to be above the selfish desires and enticements of this world. We are called to be of a higher world, God's Kingdom. We are called to be salt and light, not bitter when we lose or arrogant when we win.

No one party or candidate has cornered the market on God. Who you vote for is your business. I don't care, I love you anyway. I love you because God first loved me. Can't we all just get along?