Thanks-Giving-Living

A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them (Ezekiel 36:26-27).

God's arms are not shortened because you do not have academic credentials. Indeed, throughout my long interesting life and travels around the world, I have learned that the smartest-greatest persons I have known had very little formal education. One can easily find a college faculty in any prison. the jailhouse, the courthouse, the state house, AND, much to my sorrow, the White House, filled with people with good formal educations and yet few values and principles... Low people in high places.

Before the Lord; for he cometh to judge the earth with righteousness and the people with equity (Psalm, 98:9). This writer, knowing the holiness of God, learned long ago, not to judge others and not to judge myself.

We are observing a time of thankfulness, a truly American tradition. Like so many other things to which Satin has sunk his tentacles, the time of Thanksgiving like our time of Christmas has been turned into spending and spreeing. Just think, Thanksgiving-Living captured by blackness: Black Friday, stores open on Thanksgiving day, where at one time Christian churches claimed the day. Why should we be surprised, men love darkness rather than light. “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (John, 3:19).

Early Americans knowing suffering, the desperation of survival on these shores wanted to express there thankfulness for life, their living, giving on these shores. I can well imagine my own ancestors who disembarked from the good ship Kent in 1677 thanking God for survival. I have here in this room where I sit the cast iron pot which they brought from England... Few tools and supplies, cooking their meals in one container over an open fire. In a day, when my young relatives know so little about wanting or needing anything. How could they understand? And, these are my relatives, 1/3 of all young people have had no experience with religion in America. God deliver me from young people and even old people, without scars, who do not walk with a limp. Like most politicians, pastors, today's parents, they know nothing of suffering.

Thanksgiving is not new, not just an American tradition. Of the “Feasts” are Jewish traditions, perhaps the greatest, observed for thousands of years. Even until this day, by many Orthodox Jews, “the Feast of Tabernacles”. The Jewish people were instructed to remember their wilderness experience, when God humbled them with a tough life in the desert... Water from a rock, food-like seeds on the ground. They had witnessed God's miracle of deliverance from Egyptian slavery... Escaping by dry land through the red sea. They were instructed to remember their deliverance by moving out of their houses and constructing temporary shelter, (booths covered with tree limbs). I am sure the early socialists-psychologists in Jerusalem and elsewhere in the “Promised Land” warned them that they were not sanitary, breaking codes. They were probably warned about child abuse, as those who above the age of 40 inherited their promised destination. Cannon was not heaven, they had to fight there way throughout, but, they remembered their shoes of iron which did not wear out, the cloud of fire by night. They remembered, from the stories of their ancestors, that all were healed on the night of the great Passover (Psalm 105 tells us that there was not a feeble one among them). Those who crossed the Jordan into Cannon, nearly 3 million strong saw the walls of Jericho fall.

At the Feast of Tabernacles, even in in some of the world's great cities, penthouse roosts and, on the ground, behind guarded gates, some Jews still observe their heritage... Remembering their supernatural, God fearing, religion that has determined the world history.

This writer, world traveler, was in the Himalayas, the kingdom of Bhutan. The Buddhists are probably the most pleasant-happiest people in the world. I had walked from my hotel in Phim Pau the day before, I had been thrilled by a band and procession taking food to the monks at their monastery. Several young Buddhist monks came out to great me, dressed in their scarlet robes, barren heads (In Bhutan, about 50% percent of the male population are monks) One of the old monks had died, and they were having a long ritual. In Bhutan, the sign of grief, white flags on poles, I had already seen white flags everywhere. In a large cloister of flowers, incense burners, the decaying body of a monk laid on a platform. In this world, then and now, only 7 out of 9 persons have any religious belief at all and most of these religious beliefs, as we all know, are all shallow, just a system of pretending. The thought occurred to me as now, after a man's entire life of pursuing a false religion, of probably doing much good to some people... Such a waste, such a tragedy. Did this monk or anyone else who gives pretensions of religiosity have any sovereign to whom he can say thank you? We do not have a sovereign who we fully understand, and for God to be God, He does not need anything from us, mere mortals, mere believers, he only wants trust and, I believe he expects thankfulness in everything that comes from him.

This writer was in Greenwich Village Manhattan, on the way to meet a friend for dinner, (I still remember the name of the restaurant, Big Spoon) suddenly, on a park bench, an EMS truck standing by, a street woman, her “grocery cart” near by was giving birth to a baby. Do we think the mother or child, or those attempting to assist had any idea of what life and our thankfulness for life is all about? Or, will this baby from such humble beginnings know anything about the love of God and the supernatural protective arm of God. His redemption, his salvation, the greatest assurance-insurance known to man “Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (Hebrews, 13:5).

Christianity is not complicated, just tough. It must be to tough for most Christians to understand. Jesus did not tell us to remember his birthday, said nothing about a Thanksgiving day but, he did tell us to remember him at his table, Thanksgiving for his broken body and shed blood. Taking upon himself the sin and sickness of the world.