The Soul of Thanksgiving

  

“There‘s nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labor…that it was from the hand of God.” Ecclesiastes 2:24

 

The year was 1863. Abraham Lincoln was President. Strife ruled. The nation was at war with itself. Today seems no different. 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 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 reconnect a nation of diverse cultures and individuals into a cohesive whole by remembering the origin of its birth. This year Americans will celebrate the 158^th anniversary of Thanksgiving.

In 1620 pilgrims departed Defts-Haven, searching for a new land with the ephemeral idea of freedom. They had no idea of what to expect in their 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 must have appeared to them a country full of woods and thickets, a place of untamed beasts and wild men. It surely had an ominous and savage hue. Such is the nature of the unknown…wild, fearful yet 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. The bridges had been burned, then there was only one backup: God. 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.

Today we are benefiting 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 world news if you don’t believe this.

For years our family celebrated Thanksgiving in the small country town of my youth. The memories are fresh. The essence of those Thanksgivings is reflected today in the photographs of the smiling faces of family members and a table full of food.

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

The blessings of national unity, even as fractious as it is today, are too broad to mention. But the collective voice of Thanksgiving blends them together in spite of differences at every table where food is served, where laughter is heard and where love is shared.  The soul of being American can once again be revived on this special 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 diverse mindsets.

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 is a big part of what Thanksgiving is all about.

Today began cloudy here on the coast of Georgia, but the sun has emerged, and so have the squirrels. They sit fearlessly on their hind quarters, gnawing acorns from the abundant crop furnished by the oak trees.

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

* * *

Thank you, Abraham Lincoln, for your foresight. And thank you, God, for blessing the soul of America another year. Happy Thanksgiving to each of you and your family.

Truly, our cup runneth over.

 

Bud Hearn

November 22, 2021

Making a Fool of Yourself

 

This is a touchy subject. I’m approaching it with much circumspection as if it were a coiled rattlesnake lying in the path. Head-on encounters are not encouraged.   

We’ve all played the fool. Admit it. We all have the tattoo of having once been a fool. It’s indelible. The wound still stings, even if it’s now only a memory lingering in the deep silent recesses of our silly self-denials.   

Those with delicate sensibilities find it hard to forget and forgive being so-labeled. Ego is easily wounded. The stigma of being called a fool, even if only once, can revive dark ancestral proclivities better left buried. Even shadows of idiocy can spoil our carefully-crafted pristine past.   

That said, pause for a few seconds, and re-read the title. Then confess out loud:  “I have made a fool of myself.”  Feel relieved? Now laugh at yourself.

This is important. It brings light to suppressed incidents you’ve been hiding and disguising. Once out of the closet they have no power. Then you’ll enjoy joining the rest of us in continuing to make a fool of yourself. It’ll happen.  

Making a fool of yourself is easy to achieve. It requires no training. All you have to do is to wake up and give the tongue its head. It’ll do the rest for you without effort. Later in the day after you add some fermented grape juice it will do an even better job.

The tongue might be the easiest way to make a fool of yourself. It thrives in shredding your esteem to the ‘fool’ status because of the unfiltered nonsense it utters without restraint. Some even substitute the digital tongue, Twitter, to label themselves a fool.   

But the tongue is by no means the only culprit. We can play the fool in actions just as easily. Take your recent investment in Bitcoin, for example. Your spouse begged you not to take that plunge but no, it was the future, you said. At least you had the correct verb, ‘was.’ And now you have to contend with the ‘I told you so’ comment. The tongue is your best friend.  It can override the brain’s best wisdom. It has no conscience.

A friend told me recently his wife never forgets anything.  What woman does? I asked him to explain. He said it was a simple slip of the tongue, a brief lapse into a brainless response. He has relearned the consequences of witless actions. He swears to never again use the honest adjectives of ‘dumpy’ and ‘bulging’ when describing his wife in a new dress. Brutal honesty can backfire on anyone.

Photographs of years past reveal how we acted the fool in our clothes. Just last week I found a photo of myself in the ‘70’s. I was wearing a bloused-sleeve, pirate-like shirt at a dinner party. It seemed ‘cool’ then, sitting among a group of dinner companions in jackets and ties. Sometimes I still cringe in silence when the past comes calling.

One of the problems with making a fool of ourselves is that we can’t see ourselves. We don’t recognize when it is happening.  It has to be pointed out to us. Now this should be a warning. There’s always somebody looking, listening, just lying in wait to snare us in a ‘gotcha’ moment that will follow us forever like a bad odor.

We make fools of ourselves in public as well as in private. There’s the ‘Grandstander’ working the crowd: glad-handing, back-slapping, high-fiving. Purpose? To be seen. Or elected. Then there are the Intellectual Pontificators, puffed up with pomposity (uh, that’s us writers). And the latter-day Circuit Riders, the know-it-all, tell-it-all gossipers bearing salacious news to itching ears.

And oh, so many more. Making a fool of ourselves is a badge of having lived. Be proud of it. One day the obituaries of all those who loved to taunt us with our follies will have been posted. Then we can begin again.    

Until then, the only perfectly acceptable way I know of to make a fool of yourself is to fall in love. Even the snake will give you a pass on this one. 

  

Bud Hearn

November 19, 2021

 

A Backup Plan...Just in Case

  

Tomorrow…a risky bet. Take no chances. Prepare 

* * * 

Look, it’s a fact…you won’t need something until you need it. Then you don’t have it. That’s the way things work. When we don’t need something, we have it. Sounds like a screwy way to live, right? It is.

I’m sitting here strumming this keyboard like a mad man while watching it rain outside. No, watching it storm.  The wind blows, the rain pours, the creek, or the ocean in our case, rises and beats upon our home.

Now, island homes are built on sand, not rocks. They’re prone to collapse, warns the Voice from Galilee. The warning didn’t include sandbags, only circumspection on the foundation. We took our chances.

The thought of imminent loss is mildly troubling, but today it doesn’t compare to the urgent grumbling in my stomach. Time to eat. I check the cupboard. Frighteningly thin. Well, not totally. Bush’s Barbeque Beans hides out next to a can of asparagus, not the best combo to ward off starvation, and starvation is no respecter of persons.

This reminds me of my fisherman father who was never unprepared for contingencies. Fishermen cover their bases. His tackle box doubled as a starving man’s cache of pork and beans, potted meat, Vienna sausages and Spam. Against such vittles there is no possibility of starving. But haute cuisine it ain’t.

Hunger notwithstanding, it seems we’re obsessed with devising fallback plans for every contingency. Must we have two or more of everything? Well, yes, if toilet tissue is in short supply. Hygiene trumps hunger, but only in certain instances. Small inconveniences speak loudly; great ones are silent.

Lately our obsessions are running wild with imagination that the supply chain will collapse and there’ll be a run on essentials. What’s stoking the fires of this obsession? And who alerted us to these supply-chain malfunctions, anyway? Conspiracy theories abound.

Some are claiming that the Teamsters are to blame. They’re demanding reparations to compensate for the disappearance of Jimmy years ago. Others blame it on a hair-brained scheme concocted by sore losers who seek retribution by embarrassing The Whisperer, the poor wimp who wanders incoherently the halls of Congress fixated on Franklin, Lyndon, and Brandon.

Still others claim it’s a Chinese shakedown to hold the Fed hostage by demanding additional collateral for the damage inflation has done to their vault of past-due T bills. Whatever. Private truckers are the next billionaire class. Get in early.

Lately a deep-throated fellow is on the radio hawking survival supplies and emergency preparedness gear and everything else necessary for backup when the supply chain completely shuts down. I take note of the MRE’s, ‘meals ready to eat,’ complete with miniature metal heaters for warming. Fear can empty a wallet almost as fast as a woman on a shopping spree.

Of course, there’s need for backup supplies of a host of things, things like reading glasses. Wisdom advises keeping a minimum stash of a dozen of the cheap, drug-store variety. And toothbrushes. Keep several. Fingers coated with Crest won’t do the job on spinach.

Shirts. Shirts define the man. Keep several new ones in the drawer. When you hear, “Cool shirt. Wasn’t it popular back in the 70’s?” it’s too late. Your reputation is tarnished. Shoes, too, but that’s another subject altogether. Women have that role perfected.

But hunger is today’s motivator. Not that you’d want to follow my lead, but here are some of the staple items I keep in multiple quantities:

canned everything, especially peaches and pears,

a year’s supply of coffee,

peanut butter, jelly,

yogurt and berries,

Mi Del cookies, York peppermint patties and Reese’s Buttercups (must-have’s),

cheese sticks, almonds and potato chips.

Our cupboard is an open house. Even so, my last resort supplies never mysteriously disappear. Preserved prunes and sardines are perpetually safe from pilfering. Only camels have worse breath than sardine eaters. There’s more, but you have your own preferences.

Are you thinking, hey, this is the ramblings of an old man, mired in the rut of routine and consumed with anxiety about tomorrow? You’d be wrong. Just a lazy old man thinking better safe than sorry.

A voice comes from the kitchen, “I’m hungry, and there’s nothing in here to eat.” 

I consider answering, “For some,” but I’m not into sharing today.

“I’m going to the store.” 

I smile, thinking about my backup plan, for just a time as this. It hides beneath the berries in the freezer:

Here’s to the continuing success of your own backup supply chain, just in case.

 

Bud Hearn

November 8, 2021