The Reason for the Seasons - Why to Give Thanks

I have had some time to reflect on life, liberty, and what makes us compassionate caring people.   As much as many would have us believe that religion has no place in our society, it is those core values that have created the opportunities we enjoy today.

In this edit of "The Large and Small of it All", I will try to explain how my small town upbringing has been part of the fabric of  the country as a whole, and the result is the large results we enjoy.

As many of you know, I was raised in a small town in NE Indiana.  It was a town of only a few hundred but there were 7 churches within a mile of my house.  Every Sunday they were full, and at 10:00 am every Sunday the church bells rang out.  All the businesses in town were closed and it was truly a day of rest and recreation.  There were no Little League games or practices on Sunday.  It was just a family day.

As I grew, the town grew.  A new supermarket arrived and with it limited Sunday hours. 9-5.  They came a gas station/convenience store with 24 hour 7 day opening.   While handy, these were just chinks in the day of rest.  Communities around us grew much faster and with it came a hurried pace of life.  The Wal-Mart's, K-Mart's, and the lot were sprouting up everywhere.  This ate into Sunday and with it Sunday services.  Not that you could not do both, but it is much easier to think of yourself and shop for yourself instead of going to church and volunteering to help others.

Now just a generation removed from those times, churches in the small towns struggle, the seven that were near my home all are here, but now many of them have less than 30 people in the seats each Sunday.  More people go through the supermarket in an hour than go through the doors of a church in my area.  Little League practitces and plays make up games on Sunday.  Stores are not 24-7, and many in our family work Saturday and Sunday.  The hurried pace places a strain on family and the time to recharge and gain focus.

This country was founded by people fleeing religious persecution, and I certainly wish everyone the right to worship as they see fit.   The problem comes when no one worships, and everyone seeks "earthly pleasures."   I am currently taking some time to organize my life, get my priorities in order and reengage with all my heart.  So truthfully right now I am no better than anyone else.  And for that matter, I am no better than anyone else ever.  I just have a gift to express myself, even if no one reads it. :)

So now on to the seasons.  This year, I watched as the commercialization and growth of Halloween took it's next steps.  Starting in August, I saw aisles and aisles of decorations, lights, costumes and candy.  I think there is more emphasis retail wise on this "holiday" than at any other time than Christmas.  What happened to the "Trick or Treat for Unicef" and other fun things for others.

Now it is Thanksgiving time, a non commercial holiday so to speak, except for a time to gather family together enjoy a meal and give thanks.  Even this holiday has given in to football, shopping and more.  It is kind of like a feast before the shopping...  Very sad.

Starting on the 25th of November, the "Happy Holidays" as they are now called, will be in full swing.  Every year the birth of Jesus becomes less the reason and more of a story.  Santa and the elves are front and center.  Again a sad commentary on our moral fiber as a society.  I saw many a facebook update that saw people decorating and putting up their trees the weekend before Thanksgiving.  Would have never happened when I was a kid.

So, now I will give all the reasons for my seasons.. and I will begin with my faith.  God is good and all the time.  Jesus is the Son of God and I am thankful he gave his life so that I can be forgiven.  I can say with all honesty that my relationship with God needs work and an allot of it.  I know God is up to the task, I hope that I am.

I am thankful for my wife and children.  I could not ask for more.  My son and daughter are becoming responsible adults, even thought it took some serious prodding along the way to get them there.  Many people relinquish their responsibility as parents in order to be their kids' friends, but what they really need are authority figures to guide them, not b.f.f.'s.  As for my wife, she has been the most supportive life partner God could have ever given me.  She does for others without asking for herself, she is dedicated to her family and most of all after 25+ years of marriage, I love her more now than when we got married.

I am thankful that God allows me to make a living doing something that I enjoy and that even after all my sins and ups and downs, He still cares for me, even when I do not deserve it.

I am thankful that my kids are going to get a chance to go to college.  All thanks to my mother-in-law.  A very sweet woman who left this earth too soon.  I am thankful that my parents are still able to do much of what they want to do and are still with us as they are near the age of 80.  I struggle sometimes with their troubles, but know that I owe them more than I can ever repay.

And so as not to bore any of you more, I will wrap this up by saying that I am thankful to be living in a country that is free, that I can express my voice on this forum and despite our differences still has the ability to become more than than the sum of our parts.

I sincerely hope that where ever you find yourselves on this season that you take the time to speak with God, thank him for all he has given you and ask him to heal the wounds that all of us inflict on each other daily.  Ask for wisdom, compassion, and most of all expect nothing, but feel grateful for everything.

Dan Quayle was Right...

Today's blog revisits a era that many of us may have chosen to forget or thought it was just trivial at the time. On May 19th, 1992, a mere 19 years ago... (by us old folks standards), Dan Quayle then Vice President of the United States, returned from a trade trip to Japan.  During this time, Los Angeles broke out into riots over the verdict of Rodney King.  Of course the Japanese were dumbfounded that our country was so out of control and did not understand the culture that not only permits this, but promotes it.  During that speech, Dan Quayle also addressed what he thought was an underlying factor in our society.

Here is an excerpt from that speech...

" In a nutshell: I believe the lawless social anarchy which we saw is directly related to the breakdown of family structure. personal responsibility and social order in too many areas of our society. For the poor the situation' is compounded by a welfare ethos that impedes individual efforts to move ahead in society, and hampers their ability to take advantage of the opportunities America offers.
If we don't succeed in addressing these fundamental problems, and in restoring basic values, any attempt to fix what's broken will fail. But one reason I believe we won't fail is that we have come so far in the last 25 years". -- Dan Quayle

He talks briefly in the above quote about our current "welfare" state, that is people are impeded from moving forward in society because of the lack of family support, structure and personal responsibility.   Now I am not taking this to mean that only the poor are to blame for this.,   The personal responsibility applies to those in our government, and business leaders as well.

He further states...

"The poor you always have with you, Scripture tells us. And in America we have always had poor people. But in this dynamic, prosperous nation, poverty has traditionally been a stage through which people pass on their way to joining the great middle class. And if one generation didn't get very far up the ladder - their ambitious, better-educated children would.
But the underclass seems to be a new phenomenon. It is a group whose members are dependent on welfare for very long stretches, and whose men are often drawn into lives of crime. There is far too little upward mobility, because the underclass is disconnected from the rules of American society. And these problems have, unfortunately, been particularly acute for Black Americans." -- Dan Quayle.

And I agree in many ways.  God prompts us to reach out to the poor and help them.  From Jesus' time on earth we are reminded again and again to help the less fortunate.  Unfortunately we have chosen to do so from a cold government fund and not face to face, neighborhood to neighborhood, church to community.  The government social programs takes money from our pockets to give to others and robs us of the income we need to create some really impactful things in our own communities.  George HW Bush talked about the 1000 points of light, how each of us can become a beacon of light to help those in our areas.  Great laudable ideas, but without the means to support it, it just becomes volunteerism that makes minimal impact.  But he also implies that these same social programs that were designed to help others, is the reason that we are stopping others from growing.

Later in the speech, Dan Quayle addresses the selfishness of the baby boomers and their protests of family values and the "get it now" attitude has robbed our society of the things that we built it on.  Families, caring for one another, paying it forward, and personal ethics were all casualties of this movement.  Here is the excerpt...

" I was born in 1947, so I'm considered one of those "Baby Boomers" we keep reading about. But let's look at one unfortunate legacy of the "Boomer" generation. When we were young, it was fashionable to declare war against traditional values. Indulgence and self-gratification seemed to have no consequences. Many of our generation glamorized casual sex and drug use, evaded responsibility and trashed authority.
Today the "Boomers" are middle-aged and middle c1ass. The responsibility of having families has helped many recover traditional values. And, of course, the great majority of those in the middle class survived the turbulent legacy of the 60s and 70s. But many of the poor, with less to fall back on, did not.
The intergenerational poverty that troubles us so much today is predominantly a poverty of values. Our inner cities are filled with children having children; with people who have not been able to take advantage of educational opportunities; with people who are dependent on drugs or the narcotic of welfare."  -- Dan  Quayle

All the things that Dan mentions in these quotes are all facts and are not in dispute.  Most people laughed off Dan as a person who was a bumbling idiot incapable of making these societal observations.  But here we are 19 years later, watching an entirely new generation of people, burn down buildings, trash parks, shut down ports and demand that the world serve them instead of aspiring to help others.  The "Wall Street" crowd is selfishly reaping profits without the regard for their fellow human beings.  This is not a new idea.  It has been going on for centuries.  From the money changers in the Temple, to Ebeneezer Scrooge, people who worship money and the things it brings has been a part of society as long as their have been poor.  The only difference in our society, is that we idolized it.  We admired those with 4M dollar homes, 500K cars, yachts, vacation homes, and more.  The more we looked into those lifestyles the more we found people who sacrificed family, children, social commitment and more to get there.  So the model was set, colleges geared up classes, businesses followed the model and the rich got richer, no matter what the consequence.

Later on in the speech, Dan gets off the now famous "Murphy Brown" quote.  He reflects on Murphy Brown's (TV Character) decision to have a child out of wedlock.  She makes the decision that a dad is not necessary to raise a child and that she can provide all that a child could need.   Dan has this do say during his speech...

" It doesn't help matters when prime time TV has Murphy Brown - a character who supposedly epitomizes today's intelligent, highly paid, professional woman - mocking the importance of fathers, by bearing a child alone, and calling it just another "lifestyle choice." -- Dan Quayle

Dan was ridiculed on TV, in the newspapers, by columnists and everywhere for making this kind of speech.  But 19 years later, we are suffering from a new generation worse than the last.  They are lost because no one gave them a compass to follow.  We removed God from our lives our society and our hearts.  We sought money, power and things.  Dan followed up this by summarizing..

" It's time to talk again about family, hard work, integrity and personal responsibility. We cannot be embarrassed out of our belief that two parents, married to each other, are better in most cases for children than one. That honest work is better than hand-outs - or crime. That we are our brothers' keepers. That it's, worth making an effort, even when 'the rewards aren't immediate. , So I think the time has come to renew our public commitment to our Judeo-Christian values-in our churches and synagogues, our civic organizations and our schools. We are, as our children recite each morning, "one nation under God." That's a useful framework for acknowledging a duty and an authority higher than our own pleasures and personal ambitions.
If we lived more thoroughly by these values, we would live in a better society. For the poor, renewing these values Will give people the strength to help themselves by acquiring the tools to achieve self-sufficiency a good education, job training, and property. Then they will move from permanent dependence to dignified independence." -- Dan Quayle

So Mr. Quayle on behalf of those who refused to acknowledge the contribution to the fiber of or discussion, I sincerely apologize and say.. "You were right"!

Our current cash problems in the world, the decline of our way of life, the dissatisfaction of our existence can be traced back to the time, in which the world turned it's back on God and our own stubborn free will has caused us to hate one another, to fight over the "last crumbs" of government handouts.  In the end there will be nothing but our families and our faith to see us through.  So as Dan said, it is time to turn to God and the bible for our sustenance, not the world.  My only hope is that it happens before it is too late.

For those of you interested in reading the entire speech, follow this link...

http://www.vicepresidentdanquayle.com/speeches_StandingFirm_CCC_3.html