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 156th anniversary of Thanksgiving.

In 1620 pilgrims departed from Defts-Haven, searching for a new land with the 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.

Some 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 aunt’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, weaved into the fabric of 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 resounds 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 differences and political divisions. It seethes with national rivalries. Our country itself is not immune from its own fractured diversity. The daily news reveals it.

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 the sun shines here the coast, but storms are brewing elsewhere. 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 your foresight. And thank you, God, for blessing the soul of America another year. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family. Truly, our cup runneth over.


Bud Hearn
November 26, 2019

Ashes of Love

I’m sitting in the Snip and Clip Hair Emporium, a fancy name for a ‘beauty parlor.’ I’m waiting for my turn for a haircut. It’s weird, sitting in the midst of women who can both talk and hear at the same time.

Times have changed. Everything is unisex now. Old stigmas are gone. Men are women, women are men. Like men, women have short hair, long hair and no hair. Everyone here has a tattoo. Who can make sense of it anymore?

The women eye me suspiciously, or lustily. Who knows what women think? The subject of today is about falling in love. Being the lone male, I keep my opinions to myself. It’s foolish to engage a bunch of women in such places. Especially those who pay big money in hopes of finding, or keeping, love affairs hot and torrid.

The subject of love reminds me of S. J. Lec’s comment, “The dying fire of enthusiasm should leave ashes to provide disguising makeup for our faces.” I keep the quote to myself.

Soon it’s my turn. As she snips my hair, it falls, sliding down the black silk robe to the floor. It mingles with other hair clippings. It reminds me of a visit to the New York Stock Exchange when it was a paper world. Slips of pink paper, like so much hair and confetti, lie strewn in profusion throughout the floor. Traders walk on it, oblivious to each slip’s past significance. Old News, old loves, they say. Some love good, some gone bad, but all past Ashes of love.

I listen to the women carry on about love, how to find it, how to keep it hot. I want to tell them fried blonde hair won’t do the job. But I’m outnumbered. Old loves come into my mind. How many were there? Too many to count.

My first love was my bicycle. Like all loves, it’s a means of escape. The affair lasted until I was 13. A motor scooter replaced it. Boys are fickle…no loyalty to old lovers. The bike rusted. Life moved on. Ashes of love.

I fell in love with music. I had every Elvis 45 rpm record, not to mention Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, and Bo Diddley. I lay awake at night, straining to hear snippets of WLAC, Nashville, or WCKY, Cincinnati. One can lose lots of sleep when in love. Music is a great lover, but it’s as capricious as the listener. Songs wear out, lose their fire. Ashes of love.

In 7th grade I fell in love with my second cousin ten times removed. At that genetic distance, it seemed safe. Blue eyes, and some crossed eyes, ran prominently in our family. The entire town showed up at our family reunions. Who would notice, I thought?

Alas, in 8th grade she was hustled off to a ‘finishing’ school for girls, which finished that romance. All that remained were love letters. I learned an important lesson from that experience…never take chances with ink, even at 13. I burned the letters. Ashes of love are ageless.

I have fallen in love often…with dogs, boots, back packs, cars, guns, airplanes, fishing just to name a few. But sooner or later they all get old, like lovers do. I ruthlessly discarded them without remorse, waiting for another one to show up. It always does. Inanimate divorces are cheap. Ashes of love litter my past.

Some fall in love with sports, like golf, or running. Loves of athletic origins are often bitter-sweet affairs but can turn on you quickly. Such ashes of love keep orthopedic surgeons smiling.

It’s risky to fall in love. Like dreams, love often evaporates into illusions, then remorse when the novelty wears off. Relationships, human or otherwise, often have a short shelf life. We live for the next new thing.

Suddenly I’m jolted back into the present. “Mister, what’s your opinion of keeping love hot and burning?” a woman asks. Be careful, I think, this is a trap. I just shake my head and shrug.

Somewhere in the back seat of my youth I hear Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty singing, “Love is where you find it, when you find no love at home; and there’s nothing cold as ashes, after the fire is gone.”

I look at my haircut in the mirror. I smile and say aloud to myself, “You handsome devil.” Some loves never die.


Bud Hearn
November 15, 2019

Ringers, Leaners and Total Misses

When we were young, we passed the time playing horseshoes. We play other games now.

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Maybe it’s a Sunday, or a sunny day after school when it happens. Boredom sets in. So, we’d roam the neighborhood, find somebody’s back yard and pass the time pitching horseshoes. I miss the days.

The setup was always the same. Soft dirt, no lawns. Pace off 40 feet, or shorter for the wimps who want an easy score. There’s no shortage of that crowd.

Then, with the bent backs of the iron horseshoes, we’d pound the steel poles into the soft dirt. In those days a lot of effort was expended off the backs of something or somebody---mules, tractors or people. Same today.

Occasionally sparks would fly when the horseshoe glanced off the pole, a reminder that later heated discussions could erupt over scoring and whose shoes were closest to the pole. Cheating was rare, but arguments can happen over stupid things.

We never thought that playing horseshoes could be a preparatory tutorial on what was to come later. Scores are always being kept. ‘Getting even’ and settling scores was always in the cards.

Only ringers and leaners made bank. Total misses, well, at least they showed you played, and after all, nobody wins every time in a zero-sum game like horseshoes. But in those days, it was just a game, nothing was ‘for keeps,’ unlike shooting marbles or falling in love. Years tend to change things, not always for the better.

If you have pitched horseshoes before, you can recall the game by memory. You’d position yourself, focus intently on the goal. Then you’d clank the iron shoes together for good luck or attention.

Then, all cocked and ‘loaded’ (sometimes a pun), you’d swing your arm back, and with a smooth fluid motion let go your best underhanded pitch (‘underhanded pitch’ can have different meanings). With luck your horseshoe would become a circus acrobat, making beautiful back flips in a perfect arc towards the leaning post. Most times not.

Of course, shooting for the post is the purpose of it all. Ringers get 3 points, leaners 2. Your heart sinks when your shoe rolls off uncontrollably in the distance or simply plows up the dirt with the sickening thud of a total miss. Even if you were blind, your ears would announce whether you’d lost that point or got lucky.

You play in dirt, you get dirty. And with horseshoes it’s impossible to keep clean. Dust, dirt and grit are a fact of life. Some games, like croquet, are cleaner and more refined. They’re played on manicured lawns by teams clothed in pristine white attire who whack large wooden balls through tiny steel arches with wood mallets while oohs and aahs resound quietly. It’s where wine and civilized cordiality rub elbows with thinly veiled hypocrisy.

Horseshoes is a more earthy sport that leans more to beer and bragging, one step higher than shooting pool. Its arena is filled with dirt and expletives, a place where hard iron and steel collide. It leaves behind the raw, chewed-up turf as a real-time symbol of the contest fought there.

Like in all games, there’s an ending. You feel it approaching before the reality sets in. It gets old, no longer fun. It becomes work. The arms get tired, the throws get wilder, the focus becomes dull and the initial purpose dissipates. No use wearing out a good thing. So, you call it quits.

You tally up the final scores, not worrying now about the results. Maybe it just wasn’t your day, or maybe it was. After it’s all said and done, what did it matter anyway. In the end it was just a game you enjoyed playing, beating back the horror of youthful boredom for another day.

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We don’t play horseshoes much anymore. We’ve moved on to other games, games with cleaner hands and digital players. But we remember the days, and some rules don’t ever change.

Ringers, Leaners and Total Misses. Playing horseshoes is a lot like life…it boils down to one pitch at a time. And score IS being kept.


Bud Hearn
November 4, 2019