Monday Morning Music Ministry

11-21-22

Occasionally around this time of year I challenge friends, or groups to whom I speak, to take notice of something and keep informal tallies of something related to Thanksgiving.

Have you noticed that “thank you,” as a phrase, is on the way out? To say “thank you” is not quite formal or stuffy, so not yet obsolete; but listen for the numbers of “thanks,” “thanks a lot,” and substitutions like “I appreciate it,” are taking its place. We all do it; and on TV and radio a forced informality has taken hold. And that’s why it takes an effort to notice it.

But more interesting is how “You’re welcome” seems consigned to the Endangered Species list. See: say “thank you” – or even “Hey, thanks!” – to someone this week, and see how many of these replies are returned:

“No problem.”

“No prob.”

“You got it.”

“Sure thing.”

“You bet.”

So on and so forth. An odd thing, really. Personally, I would prefer replies that we often hear turned into jokes… but should not:

“Thank you!” “No… thank you!”

This little exchange – depending on what is being exchanged or acknowledged, of course – gets to the essence of what’s behind the social and conversational convention. Thanking someone, and saying so, indicates gratitude and praise, in fact a very civilized way of sharing outreach of some form. And “you’re welcome,” (and even more so “thank you”) in a little way seals a bond of mutual respect and good will. It is what we call a social grace.

And it has a spiritual aspect too. The origin and observance of Thanksgiving is peculiarly American as a national holiday. From the first days on these shores, Pilgrims who sought religious freedom designated a day to thank God for their protection and the harvests that sustained them. As part of the tradition handed down to us, Native Americans participated too, of course in a spirit of gratitude for provisions, but as well the spirit of amity that was established with the new settlers.

That spirit survived and thrived through the establishment of other Christian communities; the guiding principles of the foundation of the Republic, and – after Abraham Lincoln, who first named and proclaimed a National Day of thanksgiving, praise, and prayer – presidential proclamations until recently have sounded more like sermons than political documents.

In Lincoln’s first proclamation, he wrote: “I desire to be observed by all my fellow-citizens, wherever they may then be, a day of thanksgiving and praise to Almighty God, the beneficent Creator and Ruler of the Universe. And I do further recommend to my fellow-citizens aforesaid that on that occasion they do reverently humble themselves in the dust and from thence offer up penitent and fervent prayers and supplications to the Great Disposer of Events for a return of the inestimable blessings of peace, union, and harmony throughout the land which it has pleased Him to assign as a dwelling place for ourselves and for our posterity throughout all generations.”

In my own prayerful study I have been moved to see Thanksgiving as more than a one-way path of rendering thanks to God. As with every Holy Day, commemorations are on particular days of the Church calendar, of civic anniversaries, etc. But without exception they ought be observed throughout the whole year, to be remembered on every day. Celebrated; contemplated; revered. Not allowed to become taken for granted.

Further, a thought about Thanksgiving in general and the first Thanksgiving that inspired all subsequent Thanksgiving Days. I have said it should not be a one-way affair. Giving thanks to God, of course, is essential. But I think we can have a richer appreciation of Thanks-giving as a concept if we consider that maybe God inspired Christian Pilgrims to receive thanks as well as the heavenward offerings.

That is, the bountiful harvests and safety and amity wherewith God blessed the Pilgrims might plausibly have been His grace and gratitude extended to a people who honored Him, who dedicated a new land and their individual communities, to Christ. To their burning desires to worship Him in a place of freedom. To the incorporation of Biblical principles into the early governing documents of the settlements, colonies, and country.

Isn’t it possible that the blessings for which the Pilgrims were grateful were bounties and gifts that were one of God’s ways of expressing thanks to His faithful people? It happens… when we serve and honor God.

“Thank You!”

“No… thank you!”

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Of many hymns and songs about Thanks, this classic Ray Boltz songs always brings tears to my eyes. Especially so because, mirroring the lyrics, my own daughter was around eight when missionaries visited our little church and she promised God that she would pursue missions work. She eventually served in Africa, Russia, and Northern Ireland.

Click Video Clip: Thank You

11-22-21

Many Bible passages provide blessings over and over – meanings that are fresh, have new relevance, no matter how many times we read them. After uncountable translations through the ages, the Word of God proves itself “inspired.” Literally, God-breathed.

As we are taught, it is alive and active, sharper then a sword… judging our thoughts and attitudes, but also encouraging us and uplifting. All things for all people, if we allow it to be.

My daughter once did an exegesis of Psalm 46:10, dividing and finding a separate meaning in each word or phrase, as well as the entire verse – Be. Be still. Be still and know. Be still and know that I Am. Be still and know that I am God.

This week, thinking ahead to Thanksgiving, I did a similar thing with the “Doxology,” the traditional musical prayer of the church, so named because it was Number 100 in an ancient hymnal. Meditate on it:

Praise God from Whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here below. Praise Him, above, ye Heavenly host, Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

My parsing of those words was a little different. I challenge you, too, to think what is the most significant word or phrase in the prayer. I will quickly say that there is no right or wrong answer, which is my point about God-inspired passages being multi-faceted.

What I dwelt upon was the word “all.” All blessings. God, from whom all blessings flow.

We need, I think (I need, all the time), to be reminded that God does not send only a certain percentage of the blessings we enjoy. Given our own tendencies, we think that some good news, windfalls, happy events, successes, are from our own cleverness… or someone else’s generosity… or good luck. Or dumb luck.

God forbid that we think that way.

All blessings are from Him. And as the Master of time, He knows what will flow (think upon that word too!), even before we pray. Or don’t pray. The Lord of the Harvest did not retire when most of His children didn’t need to physically plant and cultivate and gather, as in the Pilgrims’ day. We all still reap and sow, in every conceivable way.

All blessings… all creatures.

Thank God, too, that there are no “loopholes” or nuances in that truth. We are part of the Family of God.

And as His children, in this Year of our Lord, let us praise Him for His manifold blessings on our land… and remember to ask His forgiveness too for our many national sins. Could the Pilgrims, in that first formal gathering we envision, have looked into the future? Would they have given thanks for what America has become? Not our material harvests, for they are many; but our spiritual state? Do we offer praise to Him, as they solemnly did?

… Do we have that deep sense of Thanksgiving? Gratitude? Thankfulness?

And knowing Whom to thank?

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Click: Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow

11-25-19

I am usually reminded of the same things each Thanksgiving. That is human nature, or perhaps an infertile imagination. But I don’t mean the Pilgrims and Indians, no. I do mean intentional reflection on God’s grace-filled blessings on me and mine, yes. On us all.

But I have also noticed (some would say that I am obsessed, to which I plead guilty) that “Thank you” and “Thanks” are still breathing in our conversations; however, “You’re welcome” has been displaced, or deleted. On television interviews, in phone calls, in chats around town. “Thank you” is sometimes responded to by silence – that is, not at all. Or “Thank YOU,” or “No problem,” or “You bet.”

Watch and listen; you’ll see. If you wind up thanking me, I will say, “You’re welcome,” I promise. But this development seems to be more than a conversational tic. I believe it manifests a basic unraveling of courtesy in our culture, even the loss of appreciation and thankfulness.

I also reflect on the validity of turning around the order, if not the meanings, of “Thanks” and “You’re Welcome” at this time of year. Yes, we thank God for His blessings. But can it be valid to think that, in the Pilgrims’ case for instance, when they praised God, dedicated their land to Him, and operated the colony by His precepts as a way of thanking and honoring the Lord… that His blessings and bountiful harvests were God saying, “You’re welcome”?

“He loved us, in that while we were yet sinners, He sent His Son to die for us.”

As unlikely as it would seem to be – and remembering that Grace is unmerited favor – perhaps God thanks us preemptively for our humble acts of praise and gratitude.

Circular reasoning can remind us of the miracle of God’s love, and of His wondrous ways. Those wondrous ways include uncountable things we do not understand. And we should not try to, because “such are the ways of the Lord.”

I recently came across the news about Madison Shyanne Keaton, a member of the large and talented Keaton and Collingsworth families. Below is a link to a family gathering, around the piano in the their sun room, exactly one year ago, at Thanksgiving. 

Shy, a beautiful 24-year-old, speaks very briefly about her life – running away from home at 15; drugs and sex; losing her baby and fiancee. She was also in and out and in and out of rehab. With the prayers and help of her friends and family, as she says in the moving video link below, she ought to have died, but did not. Straight and clean, her face beams with joy and faith. As everyone sings “Bigger Than All My Mountains,” she drops to her knees in… thanksgiving.

Only a few weeks ago, Shy was killed in an accident, when a car ignored signals at an intersection and hit hers. 

How can we “Thank”? Where is the “You’re welcome”? Did God have a purpose? – I always answer quickly to such questions at such times, “no, the devil had a purpose.” Our responses to these horrors in life – yes, even an aspect of our thanks and praise – is to remember the verse that “all things work for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose.” NOT “all things are good,” but “all things work for good”… and that is our job: to turn things around on the devil, and toward the glory of God. 

It is not only the random moments in life when the ways of God are mysteries. Much about Him is mysterious – although He surely has shared a lot in scripture! – but we would be, not as angels, but as God Himself if we understood everything. So we should not try. Rather for us, then, the living, to… have faith. That’s what faith is – the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen.

The “sacrifice of praise” is something He desires, that we acknowledge His goodness even when we don’t feel it. 

And maybe the essence of Thanksgiving is to thank Him when sometimes it is tough to summon gratitude. It is easy, after all, to say “thanks” when everything is rosy. But you mean “Thank you” when you have to dig deep in order to acknowledge His love and His ways. And that’s when the Master of our souls gently says, “You are welcome, my child.”

And if we don’t quite understand, we have a greater gift, God’s cycle of gratitude. Thanks for things seen and unseen.

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Bigger Than Any Mountain – Shy’s Testimony

11-21-11

Thanksgiving. Let’s see… that’s the one between Halloween and Christmas. “Turkey Day!” The day before the big sales. Autumn decorations – think yellows and oranges. Football! Those big games out in the crisp air, or – one after another – on TV all day long.

Once upon a time, Thanksgiving was a day of observance, set aside to thank God for His gifts. Now, the mention of God is an indictable offense in public schools, as proscribed as teaching that Christian Pilgrims gathered to give thanks for bountiful harvests. The closest children can be to a spiritual aspect of this “holiday” (holy-day?) outside the fortress-walls of their homes and churches, still, is a vague acknowledgment of Mother Nature. Thank… who? For… what?

So it is that Thanksgiving has become one more holiday in an annual American cycle where every month has the possibility of a long weekend built in (August is the slacker). But I invite us to step back a few steps, even a few years. Let us think about Thanksgiving.

When the Pilgrims had their feast, and prayers, it was indeed to raise praises to God for peace with the natives, for establishments of their communities, for a bountiful harvest. When George Washington proclaimed Thanksgiving, it was to bless God for the successful Revolution and for the foundations of a new nation. When Abraham Lincoln issued the first of the unbroken string of presidential proclamations in 1863, it was to ask forgiveness of God, and to thank Him for protection through a Civil War. In a Thanksgiving Proclamation of Theodore Roosevelt, he said: “The things of the body are good; the things of the intellect better; but best of all are the things of the soul,” and he besought Americans to respond to God’s gifts with gratitude and to fight for righteousness.

Without disregarding any of those ideals and values (contemporary culture is doing that, very well, by itself) I wonder if we can step back even further, so to speak. And thank God for more than harvests and prosperity and victories. Think about it – we thank God for Jesus (um, that’s our Christmas compartment); we thank God that Jesus died for our sins (check: Easter)… and so on.

Surely we don’t need a special day to thank God for being God (but Thursday will do), or to thank Him for things we don’t often think about.

This week I received a stunning video, produced by the group TED (Technology, Education, Design), forwarded to me by my friend Mike Atkinson. It features the imagist Alexander Tsiaras, and the title is Conception to Birth. Tsiaras has photographed, filmed, and recreated the development of a baby in the womb, and through the birth canal, to delivery. We see the tiniest cells and the most detailed pictures of beating hearts and evolving, folding brain components. He opens with an explanation of what we will see, and how he did it; and he closes with details of the miracle that is the human body, and the implausibility (for he is a mathematician, among other things) of the wonderful workings of the human body.

How do we react to such acts of God? The voluble scientist Tsiaras keeps returning to the words “Divine,” and “Divinity.” For me, I was awestruck. In my dank past I was one of those “blob” adherents regarding the unborn. Eventually, like Ann Coulter, I came to realize the logical challenge inherent in the question: “Why is it called Birth Control and not Blob Control?” And after watching this video several times, my additional reactions are also wonderment, and tears.

And can we not all respond to things we take for granted – life, the miracles of our bodies, everyday protections, health, simple blessings, friends, and communities of believers – with Thanks?

Maybe, this year, we can keep the decorations in the closet; the dinner-table harvest-sentiments at bay; and some of the football games at low-volume. And “automatic” prayers. At least for a little while… let us Think before we Thank.

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This video, likewise, should not be compartmentalized for, say, “Sanctity of Life” Day. Life is sacred every day – and this vid shows us how we all got here, surely a miraculous thing to contemplate every day of the year. If the video does not link, Google for Tsiaras and “Conception to Life” and you will find it. Its production is, itself, a miracle… for it brings us closer to the Creator God. By the way, I particularly appreciate the background music as the speed-motion development of a baby is shown: Antonio Vivaldi’s Gloria. Glorious indeed.

Click: Give Thanks For the Divine Spark