“Every man should keep a fair-sized cemetery in which to bury the faults of his friends.” – Clive Staples Lewis
The holiday season is the perfect time to practice the art of forgiveness. Bury the hatchets that have been stored in the cellar for so many months and/or years. Set your family or friends free from judgement and blame. In turn you’ll really be setting yourself free.
You the Man
Few make history. Fewer make it into our history books. And fewer still get an entire day dedicated to his/her life. Apparently, it takes a lot for an individual to make “Holiday Status.”
In America we have 10 federal holidays, and of those 10, four are dedicated to an individual - Washington’s Birthday, Columbus Day, Martin Luther King Jr Day, and Christmas. That’s a very short list. Especially considering all of the influential people that have come and gone over the centuries. Not just anyone gets his/her own holiday. In the U.S. you either have to be the Son of God, the explorer who found the Americas, the first president, or the leader of the Civil Rights Movement. It’s a diverse list of men, but the common theme seems to be that they did something necessary and great for America: Columbus’ explorations helped find America; God’s words helped pen the constitution; Washington abolished tyranny and lead the colonies into freedom; And Martin Luther King Jr had to remind our country what God and our Constitution said at a most critical hour.
Tomorrow, we get to honor Martin Luther King Jr. He’s a legend in my eyes. Ever since I first read about him in elementary school, I have always looked up to and admired him. His life’s work and wisdom continue to inspire, and his name consistently comes up in the top three of my “Heroes List,” “Historical Figures I’d like to have over for Dinner List,” and “Who Would Have the Scariest Internship List.” I often think, “if I only had a quarter of the integrity, passion, and faith that Martin Luther King Jr had… I’d live to be a great man.” I look forward to meeting him. Until then, his words remain…
“Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man’s sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.” MLK 1963
This week there will be no end to articles and blogs discussing “thankfulness” and the Thanksgiving season, so I’ll forgo the long wordy post and keep it simple. As much as the shirt above rings true in my heart (Probably more so during Thanksgiving which is accompanied by the rituals of food/football), the following speaks even louder.
Psalm 100:4-5 – “Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures for ever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.”
Don’t Be Lame
Going “green” gets a bad wrap sometimes. It’s often viewed as being cheap, thoughtless, and lame. Like the time my brother, who is a carpenter, used some leftover wood scraps to make stirring sticks for everyone in our family. Not everyone was thrilled over their gift because, to the untrained eye, it looked as if my brother just sanded a piece of wood and dubbed it “stirring stick” in a last ditch effort to create a gift. Maybe that was true, but I think my brother was actually being very conscious and considerate of the environment. He not only reused some of the scraps that were destined for compost, but he also didn’t bother wasting the paper to wrap the things. Yes, some might call that cheap, but I call it conscientious gift giving (Love you bro. I’m stilling using the stirring stick!).
Ok, so maybe some people are being cheap and just calling it “green” to appear cool and sexy. I think for the most part, people can tell if someone is genuine or just posing. Try not posing this year, and try being intentional about how you do the Holidays. This
year go back to the basics by practicing the three R’s – Reduce, Reuse and Recycle . Going back to the basics is a great way to simplify the holidays as well as gauge your awareness regarding waste generation. Here’s a few easy things you can do to trim your holiday waistline and help get you going in the right direction:
REDUCE
REUSE
RECYCLE
The main point is to reduce the amount of waste the Holidays generate, and I’m sure we can all agree that less waste is a good thing.
Happy Holidays.
Thanksgiving has been a long-standing American tradition. The pilgrims first celebrated Thanksgiving in the early 17th century to “give thanks” to God and celebrate a plentiful harvest. Now, Thanksgiving has little to do with giving thanks to a creator and more to do with turkey, which wasn’t even around during the first feast, and football, which I thoroughly enjoy. Like many traditions and holidays, we’ve shifted focus away from any “god” and placed it more or less on ourselves.
I don’t think it’s wrong to appreciate humanity- ourselves and loved ones. I think it’s healthy and wise as a lot of unity, compassion, and self-esteem stems from being grateful for who we are and what we have. However, for me, as much as my thankfulness is with regard to humanity, it also consists of a deeper gratitude extended toward a creator. I believe appreciation for some thing, or some one, greater actually increases appreciation for the seemingly “smaller things.” It does, however, depend on how you view the “some thing greater.” Our ability to be thankful is dependent on our perception of God and our place in this great universe.
How we view our Creator determines our view of creation. In other words, if I think God is a big, grey bearded man, who bitterly sits on a throne and waits for humanity to make a mistake so he can punish them, then my view of creation will likely stem from a place of apathy. I’ll care less about the environment, and the people within that environment because God is just waiting to punish. If I don’t see God as being grateful and loving toward creation, then I too will lose a sense of gratitude and love toward creation. Nevertheless, if I see God as a loving and compassionate creator who is madly in love with all of creation, then I will see creation with those same “eyes.” If I acknowledge that God, the everlasting and all powerful, values me and my fellow neighbor more than I ever could, then who am I to not place value on either? Who am I not to be grateful for all I’ve been given and for all that I am?
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and so is love, gratitude and thanksgiving. Yet how much more gratitude can the eye of the beholder have if she understands that she is beheld as beautiful and lovable in the eye of the creator of beauty, thankfulness, and love?
