Thanksgiving Dinner

Artist: Louis Lozowick, born Ludvinovka, Russia 1892-died South Orange, N.J. 1973

© 1938, Lee Lozowick

Thanksgiving Dinner

Thursday, November 23rd, 2023

by Ken Pullen

ACP

It isn’t Turkey Day. I almost get the same sensation in my soul when I hear someone say turkey day referring to Thanksgiving as I do when I hear someone say mother nature.

It isn’t about being a stickler, a curmudgeon, an old person, or making a mountain out of a molehill.

Traditions matter. Words matter. Understanding, history, wisdom, awareness, and depth of spirit, depth of mind, and character matter. At least they all used to matter.

No, it isn’t turkey day, about all the food that can be consumed in one day, or football.

It was set aside as a day of thanks to our Creator. Thanks be to God Almighty! Thanks to the Lord Jesus Christ, thanks for the Divine Providence that brought about this once greatest of all nations ever conceived and brought to fruition. We are all indebted to God.

It isn’t about how many pounds and how overcooked is the turkey. Or about the Detroit Lions playing whoever in an NFL football. Or discussing politics around the table, if gathering around a table as now the divisions are such, the desire to tear down every foundation, every tradition and to attempt to divide rather than come together. To show compassion. Express love rather than vitriol and rage. It isn’t about correcting. More about knowing and understanding what is correct, what used to be correct and understood.

Nothing to do whatsoever with nostalgia or a longing for days past.

Everything to do with great concern for lost values, increased ignorance, lying, deception, people kept in fear, turning from God, removal of joy, freedom, liberty, civility, and civil conversations, any conversations at all rather than what passes for such today.

No, it isn’t about turkey at all.

Too bad so many are so narrow, so lost, so consumed, so busy, so glutinous, so self-absorbed [even in a crowded room surrounded by friends and family], so lacking in awareness and knowledge of history, values, ethics, civics, and the Word of God. Oh, especially the Word of God!

Words matter.

They reveal what lies beneath, inward, the depths and breadth of an individual. Priorities. Not just education, no, nothing really to do with education or having a degree of any kind — about the degree of understanding, depth, character, what makes up a person.

And it isn’t about being thankful for a day off from work, eating as much as possible in one day, being loud and obnoxious, hurtful, selfish, or football. Especially not about NFL football.

Eat, drink, feast on the Word of God!

Spend 10% of the time spent watching NFL football in fervent humble prayer, in study and meditation within God’s Word — thinking deeply, pondering what is read.

Be thankful for others. Get out of our own way, away from the mirror continually looking at self.

Be thankful for every breath, and heartbeat, if you can see for the vision the Lord makes possible, if you can hear for the sounds of life made possible, if alive be thankful daily for the Supreme Sacrifice of God to come to this sinful world and show us Himself, how we ought to think and live, and, for what He did on the cross for any and all who will believe and obey.

Gratitude not for granted.

Thanksgiving. Not turkey day or oh boy, I can watch football all day long after overeating. While at the table pause to think about the many, the millions of people this very day, and every day without food, Eating whatever they can find to just try to stay alive one more hour, one more day. Hoping for one meal. A morsel of food. Think about that after complaining the turkey is dry, or the pie doesn’t look as good as the one so and so brought last year, or the never-ending banality and nonsense uttered.

I wonder if folks still remember how to give thanks, what such a day means, and how and why it came about.

Thankfully, the Good, Gracious, Merciful, Loving Lord blesses with breath, a beating heart, a mind to use to repent of our sinful ways, our forgetting about thankfulness and where all good things come from, and the Good Lord continues to bless many so that they can come to see, to hear, to know what it is we all ought to be most thankful for.

Need I write more?

Didn’t think so.

See, one more thing to be thankful for…