The Soul of Thanksgiving

“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? “ Mark 8:36-37


The year was 1863. Abraham Lincoln was President. Strife ruled. The nation was at war with itself. The landscape by most visionaries was bleak and dreary. The nation seemed to have lost its bearings and its very soul. Being thankful under these conditions was seemingly impossible. The nation urgently needed to mend its fraying fabric.

Under these dire conditions Lincoln issued a proclamation establishing the last Thursday in November as a national holiday. His intent was to coalesce a nation of diverse cultures and individuals into a cohesive whole by remembering the origin of its birth. This year Americans will celebrate the 154th anniversary of Thanksgiving.

In 1620 pilgrims departed from Defts-Haven, searching for a new land with an ephemeral idea of freedom. They had no idea what they would face in the quest. As if the hardships of the voyage were not enough to deter them, what they saw at landfall must have made them question their sanity altogether.

There, looming before them in the stark winter stood a harsh land with a weather-beaten face. It appeared to them a country full of woods and thickets, a place full of untamed beasts and wild men. It had an ominous and savage hue. Such is the nature of the unknown…wild, fearful but full of promise.

It was up to these pilgrims to carve out their dreams and visions. They neither expected nor received the benefits of ease in the process. For having left their homes, having said goodbye to their families and friends, they said goodbye to the old life and searched for a better home.

We who read this today are benefitting from the sacrifices of these visionaries. We can ask ourselves these questions: Under what tyranny would we now be living if not for the perseverance of these intrepid travelers? How would our destiny have unfolded?

Fortunately, we have the answers. Living in America is a blessing of untold and incalculable dimensions. Read the news if you don’t believe this!

Three years ago on this date our family and friends sat in a Methodist Church in the small town of my youth. We gathered there to say a final goodbye to our mother. My nephew recalled the influence she had upon his life. He synthesized it based on his annual visits for Thanksgiving. He recalled pulling into the driveway of his grandmother’s home. The first thing he saw was her face in the kitchen window, welcoming him with a smile.

The soul of an American Thanksgiving also has a face. It’s seen in the Rockwell-blended faces of families, merged together into a national tapestry. Each face represents a precious memory, of a home and a secure place where families can thrive.

The blessings of national unity are too broad to enumerate. But the collective voice of Thanksgiving blends them together at every table where food is served, where laughter is heard and where love is shared. The soul of being American is once again revived on this memorable day.

Today, the world is a dangerous place. It’s fractious, filled with secular pursuits, religious divisions and seethes with national rivalries. Our country itself is not immune from its own fractured diversity. The horror of continuous news reveals this on a daily basis.

Yet in spite of this, America continues to stand, strong in the collective unity under which it was founded…established by a beneficent God for the purpose of freedom. A continuous remembrance of this fact is what Thanksgiving is all about.

Today began sunny on the coast, but clouds are gathering for another storm. In the front yard a squirrel sits on its hind quarters, gnawing on acorns. It seems to smile as it feasts on the prodigious crop furnished by the oaks.

America has endured many storms. It will weather more. But, like the squirrel, we can take comfort in the fact that a gracious, Almighty God desires to furnish us with untold blessings. Our collective soul will continue to flourish as long as we remember the Source of these blessings.

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Thank you, Abraham Lincoln, for the gift of this holiday. Thank you, God, for blessing the soul of America another year. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family.


Bud Hearn
November 22, 2017

Just Right

“The coffee was hotter and blacker than the sins of the devil himself. But it tasted just right, you might say.” Louis L’Amour

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Life demands verbal responses. The choices are many, from the crude to the superlative. Finding the appropriate middle ground is a challenge. ‘Just right’ might be the perfect choice for you. It was for Goldilocks in her choice of beds, you know.

‘Just right’ is one of those colloquialisms that just doesn’t beat around the bush but hits it head on. What else defines everything and yet nothing at all? It’s on par with the ‘It is what it is’ rebuttal to anything defying explanation. You can’t go wrong dropping this idiom.

‘Perfect’ is its high-brow first cousin. It walks a tight, narrow line while ‘just right’ is a wide-open DMZ between opposing choices. It provides a lot more wiggle room and doesn’t box us in. After all, what’s perfect in this life anyway?

Even Plato, now with us only as a marble-busted Greek, knew this. He got tired of his girlfriend complaining that his dish washing wasn’t perfect. So he came up with his Theory of Forms. Pure genius. It’s as viable an escape hatch today as it was then.

It’s a simple philosophy that nullifies even the possibility of perfection. It’s only in the ethereal world where perfect patterns exist. Not here. Everything on this planet is just an imperfect copy of those perfect patterns. Look in the mirror. The reflection you see will affirm all contrary delusions.

My friend George brought the concept of ‘just right’ down to earth. He said a fellow named Philo once worked for him. Philo liked his whiskey. After finishing a job, George gave him a pint for doing good work. Later, this is how the conversation went:

“Philo, how’d you like that whiskey I gave you?”

“Boss, it was just right.”

“Just right? What does that mean?”

“Well, boss, if it was any better you wouldn’t have given it to me. And if it was any worse, I wouldn’t have drunk it. So I guess it was just right.”

There you have it, no long, boring take-offs of the merits of whiskey, details nobody wants to hear. Just straight to the point.

Now, ‘just right’ is superior to some of its other lower-class, across-the-tracks relatives. Imagine Philo answering, like ‘not bad,’ or ‘pretty good.’ He could have said ‘OK,’ or ‘all right,’ or maybe even ‘fair’ or ‘outta sight.’ No, they’re cheap substitutes compared to ‘just right.’

True, ‘just right’ is a working-class idiom. It does not live in the same gated community as do some of its other more well-bred family members. You’ve met some of them, these formal and starchy adjectives and adverbs. They show up on engraved stationary and in country club conversations. Things like:

The holidays: marvelous
The symphony: stratospheric.
The trip: exhilarating.
The dinner party: smashing.
The wedding: lovely.

Huh? Such descriptive responses sound profoundly imposing but lack substance. They belong in British sitcoms. No, ‘just right’ is a utilitarian worker that shows up, gets the job done and leaves.

But back to Philo. What if he had attempted a more ‘perfect’ description to the question posed to him? How would it have come out? Maybe like this:

“Well, boss, that mash you so graciously bestowed upon me had extraordinary qualities. It had a subtle nose of smoky sensuousness, coupled with a distinct savor of an old Irish keg and yielded the unmistakable aroma of an aged raccoon. Its heavenly essence and dark luminescence reflected warmly the glowing orange coals of my fire.” Gag!

‘Just right’ did the trick, no superfluous discussion necessary.

Now, ‘perfect’ may have a purpose somewhere, though nothing comes readily to mind. It’s inherently flawed within itself, a pie in the sky dream. Moreover, it’s a hard taskmaster, a cruel tyrant. It demands more than can be achieved and dishes out harsh punishment to anyone attempting to placate its insatiable demands. It should be obliterated as an alternative for anything.

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So let’s dispense with the notion of perfection and loosen up, take a breath and, like Philo, enjoy the fruit of our own labors.

O, the prison of perfection, and the freedom of ‘just right.’


Bud Hearn
November 17, 2017

Whistling

Whistling…you either can or you can’t. There’s no middle ground.

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I was about 10 years old when I first heard the question, “Son, what do you want to do when you grow up?” I knew without even thinking…. all I ever really wanted was to be able to whistle.

It’s a tough question to answer at any age. At 10, I was nowhere close to putting away childish things. I had barely broken the habit of sucking my thumb, a necessary rite of separation which, for some strange reason, led to biting my nails. But that’s another story altogether.

Now I know whistling is a low bar to maturity, and there’s not much future in it unless Lawrence Welk is resurrected. But for some strange reason I felt it necessary to want to stand on the corner and let out a shrill whistle that would turn heads and stop traffic. A perverse need for power begins at an early age.

But alas, the only instruction I ever got was, “Son, keep trying; it’ll come.” But it didn’t come, and it was really stupid to walk around constantly blowing air out of my puckered lips. I felt like failure was a perpetual way of life.

Now trying to teach a 10-year old boy anything associated with art is like teaching a stone to talk or training a mule to sing opera. No sir, it’s worse than having to memorize algebraic equations. The art of whistling is a learned trait.

I was still too young to join the after-school marble shooting games, which was a good thing I think. Basically, shooting marbles is the threshold to a greater problem: gambling. Bets were made, marbles were lost, marbles were won. Winners laughed, losers lamented. So I kept blowing air out of my mouth, hoping and spooking my dog.

Maybe whistling is not high on your list of achievements. But conquering the problem of making sound from blowing air will guarantee fame and financial success in such endeavors as politics, preaching and selling used body parts.

So for months I lay awake at night, twisting my tongue in various contortions and blowing air between my teeth. Finally one night a small sound slipped over my bottom lip. I had just scaled the Everest of whistling. Euphoria erupted, and failure retreated. Things began to look up.

For weeks I coaxed my ephemeral, fledgling sound. It grew like Samson in strength and volume. I was as proud of the accomplishment as I was of the fuzz that was forming on my chin. I’m whistling, and soon to be shaving. Maturation was happening.

There are no secrets in learning to whistle. No rules, really, it all just depends on the alignment of tongue, lips and breath. For me, whistling Rock of Ages in D major was my crowning achievement. Ok, so it drove my parents mad, even as rap music does most today. Some things must be endured in silence.

Like the multiple uses of tongues and lips, those mischief-making co-conspirators, one has to be cautious about whistling. I learned this the hard way some years ago. Let this story be a warning to all you whistlers out there.

A friend and I once hosted a very large party complete with a full petting zoo. The prime attraction was this enormous orangutan swinging from the bars of his cage. Harmless, the handlers said. Regrettably, I took their word for it.

So I walked over whistling a tune, maybe it was Fly Me to the Moon, I don’t recall. The creature obviously mistook my whistling for amorous intentions. Suddenly an enormous hand with eight-inch fingers attached to the end of a five-foot arm reached out, gripped me by the nape of the neck and planted a long, wet kiss on my lips.

Being proud of his conquest, he released me with a wink and a smile. Now take it from me, you haven’t been kissed until you have been smooched by an ape. It broke me from whistling in zoos.

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It was long ago and far away when I was a boy learning to whistle. Life moves on with its simple rites of passage. But whistling remains as long as you can blow air out of your puckered lips.

So if you’re learning to whistle, keep trying; it’ll come. And, friends, that’s not just whistling Dixie.


Bud Hearn
November 10, 2017