It’s going to snow. I can feel it in the air pressure. In the humidity level. I see it in the grayness of the sky. I smell it in the atmosphere. I sense it in my arthritic old bones.
But mostly I heard it on the radio.
As you plan your Thanksgiving meal, make sure to check out the following “fool-proof” recipe from Joseph’s Machines.
What a week it has been, for an introvert. The mad whirl of social engagements has me quite o’erwhelmed, and I find myself edging stealthily toward the fainting couch. If the week has had a central theme, it’s probably “I hate the 62 Crosstown.”
Not that I’m complaining. I wouldn’t have missed any of this week’s social contacts. I’m just not used to this many in so short a time.
One week ago today, we had the annual Walker Thanksgiving here at Blithering Heights. Everyone was on their best behavior, no fights broke out, and I didn’t ruin the turkey. So no complaints there.
On Monday morning, I drove my brother and his wife to the airport. They were accommodating and undemanding, and the only problem was that it was snowing. Not heavy snow. Quite light, in fact. But the temperature was precisely calibrated to turn that snow to ice under everyone’s car wheels. So we crawled along Highway 62, Minneapolis’ venerable crosstown artery. I’m sure Bob Dylan crawled on 62 in his time, and F. Scott Fitzgerald would have if he’d stayed around town long enough to see the thing built. We were in plenty of time for the flight, but I was late to open the library at work. This is always a distressing eventuality for the students at the Bible school, but as far as I know none of them actually required counseling.
On Thursday, I met a fan for the first time. This wasn’t just any fan, this was…
Well, let’s start with this movie clip, below the fold: Continue reading A week with the Crosstown
Thanksgiving at the home of Earle Landis, Neffsville, PA, 1942. Photo by Marjorie Collins. This was just eight years before my birth. I am that old.
My heart has greatly desired this Thanksgiving. Not because of my fitting gratefulness; heaven knows I’m as ungrateful as the next man, and a lot more ungrateful than that other guy next to him. No, this holiday season has been a benchmark for me ever since I started graduate school. By Christmas I’ll be done with classes (assuming I don’t flunk one unexpectedly), and even now the pace is slowing down. Neither of my instructors seems all that interested in cramming work into the last couple weeks. I’m essentially done with my labors for one class, and the other doesn’t have a lot left except the final test. That will be annoying, but there’s nothing I can do through anxious care to make its span a cubit less.
So here I am, on the verge of being done with the bulk of it (the question of a Capstone Project remains up in the air), breathing afar off the balmy zephyrs of liberty. For more than two years I’ve been squeezing my life into whatever spaces the academic template overlooked. Soon I’ll have evenings free again. I’ll be able to relax (a bit) on weekends. And – praise to the Almighty – I’ll be able to work on my novels again. I even sat down the other night and wrote a scene that had impressed itself on my mind. It’s an important scene, one that reveals the heart of a major character, and should guide my portrayal.
So I’m thankful. Frankly, thinking back, there were long bleak stretches when I didn’t see how I could get this far. Either I’d fail or the stress would kill me, I figured. As with so many things in life, the Lord’s iron purpose was to make me walk through it, get stronger, and learn what I was capable of. Wasn’t it Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof who asked the Lord to please not bless him so much?
Have a blessed Thanksgiving. I expect I’ll be hanging around here a bit more from now on.
“Home to Thanksgiving” by Currier & Ives, 1867
“He who sits by the fire, thankless for the fire, is just as if he had no fire. Nothing is possessed save in appreciation, of which thankfulness is the indispensable ingredient.” (W.J. Cameron)
I’ve used that quotation for Thanksgiving before, but it was a long time ago. On the old web site, I think. Anyway, I like it.
It occurred to me today how closely thankfulness is connected to faith. One of the most common hindrances to faith—at least in my experience—is worry about the future. “Things are all right just now,” I say to myself, “but what about tomorrow? Being thankful feels too much like complacency. I have to keep my eye out for what’s coming down the road.”
This is one reason, I suppose, why Jesus tells us to cast no thought upon the morrow. Worry kills thankfulness, and lack of thankfulness destroys our spiritual perspective.
So have a blessed Thanksgiving. I hope you spend it with people you love. Or, alternatively, that you love the people you’re spending it with.
Stephen Paulus’ “Pilgrims’ Hymn” from his 1997 opera, The Three Hermits.
Jared has seven great ways to crush the Thanksgiving spirit, such as freaking out over everything, like a late family guest, and practicing practical atheism.
Bill talks about communal living and productivity.
One of my earliest professional experiences involved leaving a job at a government-run municipal utility to take a job at a private-sector energy company. At the utility, it didn’t much matter what you did, you were going to get paid and keep your job. There was a lot of waste, shoddy work, and sloth at that company. Don’t get me wrong, I worked with good people. But the very structure of the place was set against big productivity gains, risks, improvements or innovation.
Loosely related to these is this post from Tullian Tchividjian on counterfeit gospels: “ways we try and ‘justify’ or ‘save’ ourselves apart from the gospel of grace. I found these unbelievably helpful.”
One of our most popular posts, not by the comments it drew but by the traffic it has attracted over the years, is this story from September 21, 2006 about a microwave and a turkey. It’s linked from an urban legend page which talks about a pregnant turkey prank, which may or may not have happened despite being believable (but that page has been removed in the ever-changing Internet).
If you haven’t read either story, here’s your chance to catch up.
I generally hate it when I’m asked to list things I’m thankful for. I don’t disapprove in principle, let me hasten to add. It’s just something that makes me uncomfortable. I’m keenly aware that I enjoy a life of health, prosperity and comfort that would have suggested heaven to my ancestors (see my translations of my great-great-grandfather’s letters), and that in spite of those benefits I’m a crabbed and bitter-minded man. My mind’s focus is generally on the things that are lacking in my life. To be fair to myself, some of those are pretty big things. But if I put aside the sins of envy and malcontent, I still have plenty of things to give thanks for. Such as:
A home to live in. That blessing is compounded this year by the fact that I was recently approved for refinancing, which ought to make my financial circumstances a little more comfortable in 2010 (which I say we should all agree, ahead of time, to pronounce “Twenty-Ten”).
Jerry Nordskog and the folks at Nordskog Publishing, who took a risk on getting me back in print again (you do know I have a book out, don’t you? You can buy it here. Or here. The perfect Christmas gift for everyone on your list!).
The people at the schools of the Association of Free Lutheran Congregations, who continue to permit me to play Eccentric Librarian in their beautiful facility.
A good church to attend, not too far from where I live.
My family, for having the patience to put up with me as we gather a couple times a year—this Saturday being one of them.
Phil, for giving me the keys to the blog, and not complaining too much about the dents and scrapes I put on the fenders.
“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” (G. K. Chesterton)
Ross Mackenzie calls us back to simple living:
Thanksgiving . . . is, perhaps fundamentally, the season of hope. In this season, maybe the current condition of the global economy will focus Americans on essentials: family, nature, eternal verities, a new frugality, a simpler life. With its focus on money and “things,” materialism diminishes our appreciation for what we have. It fosters frustration, exasperation, even anger at what we don’t, and a redefining of wants into necessities and have-to-haves.
He quotes historian Paul Johnson, who says the financial crisis is result of a moral one. “We are traveling along the high road to incompetence and poverty,” Johnson states, “led by a farcical coalition of fashionably liberal academics on the make, assorted eco-crackpots, and media wiseacres.”
And here’s a story of self-reliance.
In other news, a Wal-Mart stock clerk was trampled in New York by a crowd of early shoppers. A pregnant woman was also knocked down. The crowd took down the front doors too. I think the store should have been closed and all of the shoppers thrown out of their ears.
By the way, I’m thankful for you. I don’t think I’d still be here, if I were the only one in this room.
“He who sits by the fire, thankless for the fire, is just as if he had no fire. Nothing is possessed save in appreciation, of which thankfulness is the indispensable ingredient.” ~W.J. Cameron