Giving thanks in a pandemic year

 This holiday season is going to be unlike most of us have ever experienced. No matter what your opinion on politics and the virus, the fact remains that America is undergoing more adversity this year than at any other time in many of our lives. Even 2001 after the terrorist attacks and 2008 amid the financial crisis pale in comparison to what we’ve experienced this year. For many of us, it is hard to be thankful in the midst of such strife, but, for those of us who are Christian, that is exactly what we are commanded to do. Despite all the bad news, when I look around me I can see a lot of things to be thankful for.

In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

1 Thessalonians 5:18

The most obvious is that, if you are alive and able to read this, you should be thankful. As the old saying goes, any day above the ground is a good one. Whether you haven’t contracted COVID or you’ve survived it, you have a great reason to be thankful.

We should also be thankful for the health of our friends and families. The Coronavirus has not touched my immediate family. I’ve had numerous friends and more distant family members contract the disease but most have recovered.

For those who haven’t recovered, I am thankful that we have a forgiving God. I am hopeful that they are removed from their pain and suffering and that we will be reunited in a better place someday.

My mom told me this week that their pastor, the man who performed my wedding, and his wife both have Coronavirus. Their church closed for two weeks in an attempt to limit the outbreak. My dad has respiratory issues and my mom is a cancer and chemotherapy survivor so I’m very thankful that they elected to continue attending church virtually rather than going to in-person services where they could have been exposed.

I’m thankful for the technology that makes social-distancing bearable. We can order groceries, meals, and toilet paper online and have them delivered or ready for pickup without putting our health at risk. I’m very thankful that toilet paper exists in general.

I’m thankful that we decided to put our children in virtual school this year and thankful that our school district offered the option. With several Coronavirus cases being announced in our local schools each week, that decision seems to have been validated. Even if my kids weren’t infected, I’m thankful that we don’t have to deal with a quarantine. On that score, I’m also thankful that virtual school means I get to sleep until 8 a.m. rather than waking up at six to get the kids ready to go to brick-and-mortar school.

I’m thankful for the time with my family that the pandemic has given me. We have seen much more of each other this year than we would have if we were going our separate ways to work and school. With my kids getting older, that extra time has been a precious gift.

I’m also thankful for the frontline medical workers and researchers who have spent the past several months fighting the virus. These people have risked their own health and lives for their neighbors. Many have died or lost their own health as a result.

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

John 15:13

We should also be thankful for medical knowledge. Hundreds of years of accumulated expertise as well as more recent research have shown us that protecting ourselves and our families is as simple as:

• Maintaining a six-foot distance
• Avoiding crowds
• Avoiding confined spaces
• Wearing a mask if you can’t follow the first three rules
• Washing and/or sanitizing your hands frequently

I’m thankful for people around the country who will practice self-sacrifice on Thanksgiving and throughout the holiday season to protect the lives of their loved ones. Sometimes love is better expressed by staying away than by holding someone close.

The simplicity of protecting ourselves reminds me of the story of Naaman in the Bible, who was instructed by Elisha to wash in the Jordan River seven times to cure his leprosy. Naaman became angry at the simple and seemingly senseless command. Naaman almost didn’t do as he was told, but in the end, his servants convinced him to follow Elisha’s simple advice and he was healed. Sometimes following simple instructions leads to great rewards.

I’m thankful for our advanced medical research. It hit me last night that we had never heard of COVID-19 at this time last year. The virus has been a factor in our lives for less than a year, but we have already been able to create at least three very effective vaccines that are almost ready for mass distribution. That is an unprecedented accomplishment. I’m extremely thankful for the brilliant minds that chose to spend their lives researching and curing diseases.

Previous pandemics often lasted three years or longer. As bad as Coronavirus has been, the introduction of vaccines will cut this pandemic short, saving hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of dollars. That is truly something to be thankful for.

Those of us who still have jobs should be thankful for the steady paychecks that are still coming, even if they might be at a reduced level. We should be thankful that the CARES Act reduced the number of layoffs in the first months of the pandemic recession.

It can be difficult to thankful in the midst of unemployment and pay cuts. I know because I’ve been there. But those people can be thankful for safety net programs, for charities, and for other people who lend a hand in their moment of need.

I get by with a little help from my friends.

The Beatles

I’m thankful that, despite the angst about public health restrictions, Americans really don’t know what tyranny is. Some jurisdictions have gone too far in anti-virus regulation. Others haven’t gone far enough. None reach the level of tyranny, however. It isn’t tyranny to say “no shirt, no shoes, no service” and it isn’t tyranny to ask folks to wear a mask and social distance in the midst of a pandemic caused by a dangerous virus that is spread through the air by close contact.

Tyranny is the killing and imprisonment of dissidents and journalists in Russia, North Korea, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Tyranny is the confiscation of private land in Zimbabwe and Venezuela. Tyranny is the Chinese government imprisoning pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong.

America has problems but we don’t have tyranny. I’ll get pushback for saying that, but we should really be thankful that our freedom has survived 200 years of encroaching government rather than making our problems seem worse than they are. We can also be thankful that the restrictions made necessary by the pandemic will be going away in a few months as vaccines are distributed.

Finally, and this will also be controversial, I’m thankful that a peaceful transfer of power looks more and more likely. If Joe Biden had lost, I am sure that there would have been violence. I’m thankful that did not happen.

However, as I wrote before the election, I’ve long been concerned that President Trump’s allegations of election fraud could lead to violence from the right. I’m thankful that has not happened and hopeful that it won’t.

Most of all, I’m thankful that this too shall pass. Our adversity is temporary. We can look forward to a return to normalcy next year as vaccines end the pandemic and the economy surges back. Next year at Thanksgiving, masks and social distancing will be a distant memory. We just have to stay healthy until then.

Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving.

Originally published on The First TV

Beer and Football: Origins Of A Thanksgiving Tradition

This Thanksgiving as millions of Americans settle into a turkey-induced afternoon coma, others will push aside their plates and prepare to partake in that other great American Thanksgiving tradition. The tradition that I speak of is not honoring the memory of the Pilgrims or thanking God for his blessings, although those are also important. The tradition that I speak of is football and beer.

Thanksgiving football games, paired with a cold amber, ale or lager, are a longtime American tradition. In fact, this tradition has its roots in history that predates even the first Thanksgiving turkey. Thanksgiving beer and football goes all the way back to Samoset and Squanto, the Indians who befriended the Pilgrims and taught them how to survive through the harsh New England winters.

On March 16, 1621, an Indian wearing only a loincloth walked into the Pilgrim settlement at Plymouth, Mass. The book, “The Light and the Glory” by Peter Marshall and David Manuel, tells what happened next.

"Welcome!" he suddenly boomed, in a deep, resonant voice. The Pilgrims were too startled to speak. At length they replied with as much gravity as they could muster: "Welcome."

Their visitor fixed them with a piercing stare. "Have you got any beer?" he asked them in flawless English. If they were surprised before, they were astounded now.

"Beer?" one of them managed.

The Indian nodded.

The Pilgrims looked at one another, then turned back to him. "Our beer is gone. Would you like ... some brandy?"

Again the Indian nodded.

The beer-loving Indian was Samoset, one of the few Indians in the New World who spoke English, having learned the language from English fishermen and explorers who visited the New England coast. Samoset soon returned and introduced the colonists to Squanto, another English-speaking native.

Squanto was alone in the world. He had been captured by Captain George Weymouth about 1605 and taken to England, where he spent about 10 years. After returning to North America, he was captured by another Englishman, Thomas Hunt, and sold into slavery in Spain. He escaped and returned to his home in 1619, only to find that his entire tribe, the Patuxets, had been wiped out by smallpox.

His meeting with the English gave Squanto a reason to live. “These English were like little babes,” according to “The Light and the Glory.” Squanto taught them to plant corn, catch fish and “helped in a thousand similar ways, teaching them to stalk deer, plant pumpkins among the corn, refine maple syrup from maple trees, discern which herbs were good to eat and good for medicine, and find the best berries....”

It was the Pilgrim gratitude to both God and Squanto that inspired the first Thanksgiving feast. The joyous celebration lasted for three days. It is truly miraculous that the Pilgrims, thousands of miles from England, would encounter two Indians who spoke their native language and who would take the time to teach them to survive in their new home.

If beer was present (or at least sought) at the earliest Thanksgiving, football came a little later. President Lincoln declared the first fixed Thanksgiving holiday in 1863 and the first Thanksgiving football game came only six years later.

The Philadelphia Evening Telegraph chronicled a Thanksgiving Day football game in 1869 between the Young America Cricket Club and the Germantown Cricket Club. This game came only six weeks after the Rutgers-Princeton game that is widely considered to be America’s first football game.

Yale and Princeton played Thanksgiving Day games from 1876 through 1881 according to Wikipedia. In 1882, the Intercollegiate Football Association began holding a championship game in New York City on Thanksgiving Day. By the time the NFL was organized in 1920, football was already a Thanksgiving staple.

Thanksgiving is properly a day to reflect on God’s blessings. We are truly fortunate to be heirs to the religious liberty sought by the Pilgrims and to live in this land of plenty. But as you celebrate God’s gifts, don’t feel guilty as you enjoy a football game. And if you want to have a Thanksgiving beer, consider raising your glass to Samoset and Squanto, without whom the story of the Pilgrims might have ended very differently.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Keep Politics Away From Thanksgiving Table

It’s the day before Thanksgiving and battle lines are being drawn. GQ says, “It’s your civic duty to ruin Thanksgiving by bringing up Trump.” Meanwhile, my pro-Trump friends are sharing memes that say, “This Thanksgiving don’t forget to remind your liberal family members that Trump is their president.” The Washington Times published a “Trump-era Thanksgiving guide to conservative arguments for your liberal relatives” while Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) tweeted a chart that claims the Republican tax bill will raise taxes on the middle class. “Bring this chart to Thanksgiving dinner,” Schumer urged.

Let the cringing begin.

As both sides gird for the skirmish around the Thanksgiving table, a large minority dreads the seemingly inevitable political discussion. An NBC poll found that a third of Americans dread the political talk at the table. Only 20 percent look forward to political turkey talk.

In essence, 20 percent of Americans are trying to drive the discussion at Thanksgiving toward their pet political positions, regardless of whether it ruins Thanksgiving for everyone else. In some cases, ruining Thanksgiving is the goal. My message to these people is to knock it off.

Thanksgiving is not about politics. Unfortunately, our nation and culture are so deeply politicized that not even Thanksgiving dinner is immune. The politicization of Thanksgiving began in earnest last year with a  host of articles about how to survive Thanksgiving in the wake of one the most polarizing and controversial elections in American history.

The past year has not healed wounds from the epic battle of the unpopular candidates. In fact, with the recent explosion of sexual misconduct charges on both sides of the aisle, this year may be worse. It is not a foregone conclusion that this year’s table talk will be rated “G” with topics such as Harvey Weinstein, Roy Moore, Wes Goodman and Al Franken on the table.

Partisans of both sides should be aware that they are not going to sway political views by attacking the deeply-held beliefs of other family members on Thanksgiving. The result of such a strategy would be more likely to persuade other family members that you are… a synonym for a donkey (note that this does not imply a Democrat political affiliation).

As to Senator Schumer’s chart, talk of tax reform in combination with large amounts of turkey and stuffing is not going to make you the life of the Thanksgiving celebration. If you insist on discussing tax rates during or after Thanksgiving dinner, the result will only be to push your family into a turkey-induced food coma that much quicker.

Thanksgiving is about acknowledging the blessings that God has bestowed upon us. Whether we are on the right, left or in the middle, we should be able to recognize that, compared to the vast majority of the world, Americans have it really good. Whether you like Donald Trump or not, we are all one-percenters in global terms. Thanksgiving is the time to express gratitude for that.

An appropriate way of observing Thanksgiving would be to celebrate what we have in common with our family members instead of picking at old wounds. Reaching out in friendship is more in keeping with the spirit of Thanksgiving than is political sparring over the stuffing. If the Pilgrims and the Indians can come together for a peaceful meal, Republicans and Democrats should be able to do the same.

Do we really not get enough of politics that we can’t declare an informal truce on holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas? Is there nothing so sacred in American life that it cannot be tainted with partisan political bickering? This Thanksgiving, let’s resolve to take a break from the poisonous politics of 2017. People who cannot be civil through Thanksgiving dinner should be banished to the kids’ table where they belong.

Originally published on The Resurgent

When Christians banned Christmas

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We hear a lot about the war on Christmas, but few remember that, once upon a time, Christmas was completely banned. This wasn’t in Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. It happened right here in America. The story begins with the Pilgrims. Yes, those Pilgrims. The same ones that we celebrated a few weeks ago when we had Thanksgiving dinner.

Conventional wisdom has it that the Pilgrims came to the New World in search of religious freedom. That’s true to a certain extent. They left England originally to avoid persecution, but they first settled in Holland. In Holland, they had religious freedom, but they had several complaints about life there.

According to Christianity Today, the Pilgrims didn’t like living in Holland because it was a hard place to make a living. They also thought that Holland, with its permissive culture, was not a good place to raise their children. The Pilgrims left Holland for America because they want a more pure and holy society.

As we all know, the Pilgrims moved to America in 1620. What many don’t think about is that, once established in New England, the Pilgrims were absorbed into the larger Puritan movement. The Puritans were reformers in the Church of England who rejected many of the trappings of the English church.

As the Puritan colonies in New England were growing, Puritans in the mother country were actually revolting against the king. The English civil war was fought between the Royalists, also called Cavaliers, who supported Charles I, the Catholic king, and the pro-Puritan forces of Parliament called “Roundheads.” The Roundheads were led by Oliver Cromwell, a Puritan military leader. After the Roundhead victory in 1645, Cromwell became the military ruler of England and the Puritan Parliament canceled Christmas.

Puritans hated Christmas because, even then it was largely a secular holiday. Christmas was celebrated with raucous partying and drinking, two things that were very unpopular among the Puritans, who were literally “puritanical.” After all, the Pilgrims had left Holland a few years earlier to escape this sort of sinful culture. They didn’t want it follow them to Massachusetts.

The Puritans also noted that Christmas was not Biblical. The Bible didn’t mention when Jesus was born and there was no record of early Christians celebrating the Nativity.  Puritans associated Christmas with the pagan Roman festival of Saturnalia and the winter solstice. Puritans also viewed every day as holy and spurned the idea that holidays were more special than any other day.

In Puritan England and Massachusetts, work went on as normal on Christmas Day. People who openly celebrated Christmas could be fined. In England, the Christmas spirit was hard to break. Pastors who attempted to preach on Christmas Day were arrested. Pro-Christmas sentiment ran so high that Parliament ordered shops to stay open and ordered that they be protected from violence and intimidation by people offended that they were open on the holiday.  

After Cromwell’s death in 1658, Christmas returned to England in 1660 when the monarchy was restored. The ban on Christmas lasted much longer in Puritan Massachusetts. Royal pressure led to lifting of the Christmas ban in 1681, but the holiday still wasn’t popular. The royal governor of Massachusetts held a Christmas Day service in Boston under the protection of redcoat troops in 1686. Anti-Christmas sentiment flared up around the time of the American Revolution due to its association with the crown. While not banned, Christmas wasn’t widely celebrated in New England as late as the 1850s. Christmas became an official holiday in Massachusetts in 1856.

With the Christian concern today that secular forces are trying to eliminate Christmas, it’s ironic to think that it was Christians who once banned the celebration of the birth of Christ. Truth can definitely be stranger than fiction.

Originally published on The Resurgent

   

How beer and football became a Thanksgiving traditioin

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This Thanksgiving as millions of Americans settle into a turkey-induced afternoon coma, others will push aside their plates and prepare to partake in that other great American Thanksgiving tradition. The tradition that I speak of is not honoring the memory of the Pilgrims or thanking God for his blessings, although those are also important. The tradition that I speak of is football and beer.

Thanksgiving football games, paired with a cold amber, ale or lager, are a longtime American tradition. In fact, this tradition has its roots in history that predates even the first Thanksgiving turkey. Thanksgiving beer and football goes all the way back to Samoset and Squanto, the Indians who befriended the Pilgrims and taught them how to survive through the harsh New England winters.

On March 16, 1621, an Indian wearing only a loincloth walked into the Pilgrim settlement at Plymouth, Mass. The book, “The Light and the Glory” by Peter Marshall and David Manuel, tells what happened next.

"Welcome!" he suddenly boomed, in a deep, resonant voice. The Pilgrims were too startled to speak. At length they replied with as much gravity as they could muster: "Welcome."

Their visitor fixed them with a piercing stare. "Have you got any beer?" he asked them in flawless English. If they were surprised before, they were astounded now.

"Beer?" one of them managed.

The Indian nodded.

The Pilgrims looked at one another, then turned back to him. "Our beer is gone. Would you like ... some brandy?"

Again the Indian nodded.

The beer-loving Indian was Samoset, one of the few Indians in the New World who spoke English, having learned the language from English fishermen and explorers who visited the New England coast. Samoset soon returned and introduced the colonists to Squanto, another English-speaking native.

Squanto was alone in the world. He had been captured by Captain George Weymouth about 1605 and taken to England, where he spent about 10 years. After returning to North America, he was captured by another Englishman, Thomas Hunt, and sold into slavery in Spain. He escaped and returned to his home in 1619, only to find that his entire tribe, the Patuxets, had been wiped out by smallpox.

His meeting with the English gave Squanto a reason to live. “These English were like little babes,” according to “The Light and the Glory.” Squanto taught them to plant corn, catch fish and “helped in a thousand similar ways, teaching them to stalk deer, plant pumpkins among the corn, refine maple syrup from maple trees, discern which herbs were good to eat and good for medicine, and find the best berries....”

It was the Pilgrim gratitude to both God and Squanto that inspired the first Thanksgiving feast. The joyous celebration lasted for three days. It is truly miraculous that the Pilgrims, thousands of miles from England, would encounter two Indians who spoke their native language and who would take the time to teach them to survive in their new home.

If beer was present (or at least sought) at the earliest Thanksgiving, football came a little later. President Lincoln declared the first fixed Thanksgiving holiday in 1863 and the first Thanksgiving football game came only six years later.

The Philadelphia Evening Telegraph chronicled a Thanksgiving Day football game in 1869 between the Young America Cricket Club and the Germantown Cricket Club. This game came only six weeks after the Rutgers-Princeton game that is widely considered to be America’s first football game.

Yale and Princeton played Thanksgiving Day games from 1876 through 1881 according to Wikipedia. In 1882, the Intercollegiate Football Association began holding a championship game in New York City on Thanksgiving Day. By the time the NFL was organized in 1920, football was already a Thanksgiving staple.

Thanksgiving is properly a day to reflect on God’s blessings. We are truly fortunate to be heirs to the religious liberty sought by the Pilgrims and to live in this land of plenty. But as you celebrate God’s gifts, don’t feel guilty as you enjoy a football game. And if you want to have a Thanksgiving beer, consider raising your glass to Samoset and Squanto, without whom the story of the Pilgrims might have ended very differently.

Originally published on The Resurgent