A WALDEN POND THANKSGIVING 2020

Calm Waters, Jamestown, NC

It’s been said that “one death is a tragedy and 250,000 is a statistic”.  Folks are much more responsive when it gets personal.

This pandemic year of 2020 has ushered in many changes to our lives including the lockdown of many of our activities.  Initially we were told that isolation would possibly last only a few weeks.  The SARS epidemic was relatively short lived.  But it didn’t.  Then as the viral spread expanded, we thought that it would subside during the warmer summer months like the flu virus.  But it didn’t.  Then as time passed and more human beings contracted the virus, we thought that a herd immunity would soon deter the human to human transmission.  But it didn’t.  Surely, we thought, a fast track vaccine process would release us from the threat before the holidays.  But it didn’t.  Now many of us are making the hard, conscious decision not to board airplanes or drive away from home this season to protect ourselves and those we care most about.  Restaurants, schools and churches have been shuttered. 

So here we are on the cusp of the Thanksgiving holiday where we are now asked to stay at home and not embark on our traditional travels to gather together with family and friends.  Many Americans have been compelled to follow opportunities far away from family and friends in this rapidly changing world. 

I’ve always liked the notion that we never lose if we don’t lose the lesson.  We grow and learn in life by challenging our boundaries and venturing out of our comfort and capability zones.  Most all successful people in the world have faced self-reflection in the midst of disappointment and failures leading up to their achievements. 

And I’ve always liked the notion that our creator doesn’t purposely place roadblocks and hardship in our path, but he does stand with us to bring good out of every bad situation when invited.  If hardships were not part of our existence, our ability to succeed would be diminished.  So, what have we learned from this 2020 experience?

Men in past ages self-isolated in monasteries in an effort to seek self-awareness and a closer relationship with a higher power.  Monks separate from general society to do things that make them communal such as prayer, reflection and service.  They do things that make them unique such as exercise, collection, composing and cooking.

We happened years ago onto the simple cabin constructed by Henry David Thoreau near Concord, Massachusetts at Walden Pond.  His intention was to “live simply and have time to contemplate, walk in the woods, write, and commune with nature.  I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life.”  He implored us to live mindfully, “being forever on the alert” to the sounds and sights in our own life.

And if we are compliant and alert to this time in isolation, perhaps we will emerge in the springtime immune to this virus, even more appreciative of those folks that are close to us and redeemed from the chaos of modern life that surrounds us.

 

GIVING THANKS THIS THANKSGIVING

Sale Sign, Jamestown, NC

Returning from a brief shopping trip, I once again had to drive around the mall parking lot to find a space, search in vain to find someone who could assist me, listen to old familiar holiday tunes on the ubiquitous speaker systems that followed me on my quest, pass innumerable sale signs announcing the season, stand in line just to give the retailer my money, drive home in four times the normal passage of time as the traffic dodged all around me, and finally I arrived home only to discover that I forgot to stop at the service station to refill my gas tank. All of these familiar signs of the season including the markedly colder temperatures were subliminally and not so subtly heralding the arrival of Thanksgiving Day! Retailers continued to jostle for any leg up on their competition which lately has included who will be open on Thanksgiving Day and how soon they will unlock their doors. It seems they’ve outdone themselves in the rush to capture our consumer-driven culture’s almighty dollar by stretching the revered Black Friday sales day well beyond the space-time continuum for multiple days this year. Hopefully, no one will be crushed to death once the doors are opened as has happened in years past.

In spite of all the hustle and bustle, this is a good time to pause life and focus on giving thanks. I’ve always liked a short story with an O. Henry twist like his famous Christmas story, The Gift of the Magi, about a young couple and sacrificial giving out of unconditional love. Our senior pastor recently relayed a story about perfection and thanks giving. Long ago there was a king with a devoted and very positive advisor. Whenever any situation arose, the advisor always remarked that “It was for good and worthy of thanks giving”. One day the king suffered a painful accident that severed his thumb. When his devoted advisor again said “It was for good and worthy of thanks giving”, the enraged king had him thrown into prison. Months later, the king was with a hunting party deep within the kingdom when they were captured by savages. As the natives began boiling water and preparing their captives for a slow death, they noticed the king’s missing thumb. Since they worshiped their perception of perfection and were suspicious of imperfection, they released him. Whereupon he returned to his castle and immediately released his old advisor. He fervently asked for forgiveness in treating his friend so grievously, but the advisor once again stated “It was all for good and worthy of thanks giving”. When the king incredulously asked “How this could be?” the old sage replied “If I hadn’t been in prison, I would have been with you”.

I became acquainted with Francois-Marie Arouet who wrote under the pen name of Voltaire when I took a philosophy class years ago in college. One of Voltaire’s more famous quotes that caught my attention is that “Perfect is the enemy of good”. As one who was schooled in engineering and spent my entire professional career in operations, I learned early on about the law of diminishing returns. Folks can spend an inordinate amount of time and effort striving along that final stretch to perfection when “good” will get things off dead center and actually accomplish something in short order. Someone obsessed with perfection may never accomplish anything. A college professor related the story of a mathematician and an engineer who were both vying for the hand of a beautiful young woman. Since she couldn’t choose between them, she proposed a challenge that each should stand apart from her and then begin moving in successive steps half way towards her. The first to reach her would get her hand. The mathematician immediately threw up his hands and forfeited, complaining that it couldn’t be done as there would always be a minute distance to travel. The engineer immediately started walking, stating that he knew he would never arrive, but he would get close enough for all practical purposes! Should we constantly seek perfection in life or will “good enough” see us through? I’d argue that perfection is a nice goal, as long as we understand that falling short will be the norm and only one person ever walked this planet in perfection. Accepting imperfection as long as we can attain a level of “good” can immensely improve our productivity and peace of mind for the good life. Don't lose the joy of life waiting on perfection. Life is neither perfect nor fair, but life is good.

As we journey through life, we can serenely look back on a good life well lived and say “It was all for good and worthy of thanks giving”. And besides, there are times when elusive perfection might get us into hot water!

THANKSGIVING 2015

Honor Flight, Washington, DC

So thankful on this Thanksgiving week that I paused my busyness long enough to wait on an elderly man wearing a navy hat and using a walker. As I approached the heavy door of our local Jamestown Post Office, I noticed him slowly making his way to the entrance. I waited and held the door open for him as he approached. He looked up under the military insignia on his hat and with a wry smile said, “I walked across Europe and into Germany but now I can’t even get into the Post Office.” Wow. I returned the smile and told him I was thankful for his service.

On the drive home, I was reminded of a time when I was waiting on a connecting flight at Washington Dulles International airport. A noisy crowd was gathering close by so I got up and walked over to witness a plane load of military veterans coming off an Honor Flight to see the WWII Memorial on the Mall. Some were gamely walking with canes and walkers, while some were attended in wheel chairs. Some had tears in their eyes. Every hassled passenger in the crowd paused and began clapping as a men’s chorale sang fight songs.

I paused once more to thank God that I am among the very fortunate to be born in a land of freedom and to have known the greatest generation that sacrificed so much for it.

THREE GIRLS THANKSGIVING

Three Sisters, Wikipedia

As we move into the heart of fall, the maple leaves are beginning to turn color at the tips as the nights grow colder foretelling the fallow days of winter. History records that the first winter for the new world pilgrims would have been devastating if it had not been for the American natives that showed them how to grow crops here. Many of the native tribes had found a lifesaving secret and a variety of legends about the three sisters emerged from these practices. They had discovered the symbiotic relationship among Corn Girl, Bean Girl and Squash Girl that sustained the three sisters and the Native Americans. The Cherokee and Iroquois legends tell of Corn Girl who wore a pale green dress and her long yellow silky hair blew in the wind. But the hot sun burned her feet while weeds grew around and choked her. Bean Girl was very thin and relatively weak as she lay on the ground. And Squash Girl with the yellow dress was short and hungry.

The Native Americans soon discovered that the primary crop of corn provided more energy calories per acre, but it grew healthier in community with beans and squash. The corn provided a much needed pole for the bean vines to climb and thrive. And the wide prickly squash leaves growing on the ground provided shade to control weeds and retain ground moisture from the rains. The beans fix nitrogen on their roots to improve the overall fertility of the soil for all the crops. Corn or maize is high in calories, but low in protein and amino acids. The bean is high in protein and has a complementing amino acid. The squash is high in calories, vitamins, and minerals while its seeds are a source of protein and oil.

The three sisters taught the Native Americans, the first pilgrims and still teach us today that there is strength in diversity and teamwork! And the bounty of that first harvest in the new world was evident on the first Thanksgiving Day when Americans demonstrated hospitality and fellowshiped with undocumented aliens from Europe!

GIVING THANKS FOR A GOOD LIFE

Thanksgiving Sale, Greensboro, NC

I just returned from a brief shopping trip where I once again had to drive around the mall parking lot to find a space, searched in vain to find someone who could assist me, listened to old familiar holiday tunes on the ubiquitous speaker systems that followed me on my quest, passed innumerable sale signs announcing the season, stood in line just to give the retailer my money, drove home in four times the normal passage of time as the traffic dodged all around me, and finally arrived home only to discover that I forgot to stop at the service station to refill my gas tank. All of these familiar signs of the season including the markedly colder temperatures were subliminally and not so subtly heralding the arrival of Thanksgiving Day! Retailers continued to jostle for any leg up on their competition which lately has included who will be open on Thanksgiving Day and how soon they will unlock their doors. It seems they’ve outdone themselves in the rush to capture our consumer-driven culture’s almighty dollar by stretching the revered Black Friday sales day well beyond the space-time continuum for multiple days this year. Hopefully, no one will be crushed to death once the doors are opened as happened last year.

In spite of all the hustle and bustle, this is a good time to pause life and focus on giving thanks. I’ve always liked a short story with an O. Henry twist like his famous Christmas story, The Gift of the Magi, about a young couple and sacrificial giving out of unconditional love. Our senior pastor relayed a story this week about perfection and thanks giving. Long ago there was a king with a devoted and very positive advisor. Whenever any situation arose, the advisor always remarked that “It was for good and worthy of thanks giving”. One day the king suffered a painful accident that severed his thumb. When his devoted advisor again said “It was for good and worthy of thanks giving”, the enraged king had him thrown into prison. Months later, the king was with a hunting party deep within the kingdom when they were captured by savages. As the natives began boiling water and preparing their captives for a slow death, they noticed the king’s missing thumb. Since they worshiped their perception of perfection and were suspicious of imperfection, they released him. Whereupon he returned to his castle and immediately released his old advisor. He fervently asked for forgiveness in treating his friend so grievously, but the advisor once again stated “It was all for good and worthy of thanks giving”. When the king incredulously asked “How this could be?” the old sage replied “If I hadn’t been in prison, I would have been with you”.

I became acquainted with Francois-Marie Arouet who wrote under the pen name of Voltaire when I took a philosophy class years ago in college. One of Voltaire’s more famous quotes that caught my attention is that “Perfect is the enemy of good”. As one who was schooled in engineering and spent my entire professional career in operations, I learned early on about the law of diminishing returns. Folks can spend an inordinate amount of time and effort striving along that final stretch to perfection when “good” will get things off dead center and actually accomplish something in short order. Someone obsessed with perfection may never accomplish anything. A college professor related the story of a mathematician and an engineer who were both vying for the hand of a beautiful young woman. Since she couldn’t choose between them, she proposed a challenge that each should stand apart from her and then begin moving in successive steps half way towards her. The first to reach her would get her hand. The mathematician immediately threw up his hands and forfeited, complaining that it couldn’t be done as there would always be a minute distance to travel. The engineer immediately started walking, stating that he knew he would never arrive, but he would get close enough for all practical purposes! Should we constantly seek perfection in life or will “good enough” see us through? I’d argue that perfection is a nice goal, as long as we understand that falling short will be the norm and only one person ever walked this planet in perfection. Accepting imperfection as long as we can attain a level of “good” can immensely improve our productivity and peace of mind for the good life. Don't lose the joy of life waiting on perfection. Life is neither perfect nor fair, but life is good.

As we journey through life, we can serenely look back on a good life well lived and say “It was all for good and worthy of thanks giving”. And besides, there are many times when perfection can get us into hot water!

TYAGFEAAA

Blessings

There are many paths to a positive attitude in life with lots of forks and roadblocks along the way. One of the most basic is to acknowledge that life is indeed a gift from a greater power that has shown His love for us in many ways. It involves taking inventory of all the blessings we’ve received in life every day and giving thanks to the ultimate Source. That can be difficult for many. When folks were recently asked to define how much money they considered would quality them as rich, they all had a different amount in mind, but many responded with an amount that was double their present wealth. Someone who has spent a satisfied lifetime looking at the half full glass and thanking our Creator for their blessings knows the path to positive living.

There was an inspiring article in the news this week about a granddaughter’s quest regarding her grandmother who passed away twenty years ago from brain cancer. In the two weeks prior to her passing, the woman had lost her ability to speak, so she had written on index cards with seemingly coded letters that no one could interpret. The family could never understand what the woman’s final communication meant, so the granddaughter recently posted the letters on the internet, asking for help. One of these cards contained 78 letters:

“OFWAIHHBTNTKCTWBDIEAIIIHGUTDODBAFUOTAWFTTTAUALUNITBDUFEFTITKTPATGFEAE. TYAGFEAAA”.

The first 69 letters on the card began with “OF-WAIH-HBTN” and she ended with these 9 letters, “TY-AG-FE-AAA”.

Strangers immediately began asking questions about the young woman’s grandmother including her relationship with God. Before very long, someone out there who knew The Lord’s Prayer had broken the code. The dying woman could apparently no longer write complete words in her final hours, but she was somehow still able to record the beginning letters of her thoughts. That first long string of 69 letters did in fact represent The Lord’s Prayer which the woman most assuredly had recited to her Heavenly Father hundreds of times. It’s a comforting prayer of praise and requests. And the final 9 letters were recognized as representing a phrase of thanksgiving that she must have used to end her prayer. She ended her life with the same positive attitude and words that had sustained her throughout her time of “thanks living”—The Lord’s Prayer followed by “Thank you, Almighty God, for everything. Amen, Amen, Amen.”