Thanksgving on the Big Screen

Ever wonder if God has Netflix?
When I get I to heaven, I want to check out His home movie collection so I can see real footage of past events. Maybe God has a giant reference room, with HD flat screens from floor to ceiling, soft-as-cloud couches, and remotes to call up any event in history on his divine DVR. Think Best Buy’s wall of TV’s on a heavenly scale. Just imagine what you could see: Military battles. Explorers. Inventors. The Detroit Lions winning a playoff game. You could call up key points in American history like Washington crossing the Delaware, the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and that magical day in July of 1968 when I was born. Maybe you’d see Mrs. Lincoln say to her husband, “Gee honey, the popcorn at Ford’s theater is so over-priced, why don’t we stay home tonight?”

Near the top of my list of events to watch would be the first Thanksgiving. Unless you eat outdoors, share your table with natives, and serve beer-battered eel, the first Thanksgiving was very different from how it is normally portrayed. It was more of a Harvest Festival instead of a day of thanksgiving. It was surely very spiritual as the Pilgrims were religious Separatists, but a day of thanksgiving would have been set aside for worship in church.

So on God’s scoreboard-sized, gold-plated TV you’d see a three-day party, with the 53 Pilgrims and 90 natives of the Wampanoag tribe eating, dancing, singing, and playing games. You’d see Squanto, an English-speaking native, translating for his chief Massasoit and perhaps congratulating the Pilgrims on the success of using the hunting, fishing, and planting tips he gave them. Maybe God’s video pans to the cemetery tucked into the rolling Massachusetts hills where the 49 pilgrims who didn’t survive the first year were laid to rest.

The video undoubtedly would show Chief Massasoit meeting with his warriors discussing his uneasiness with the white man. Did he talk about the plagues that the Europeans had brought in previous years that tomahawk-chopped the local native population to pieces? You might catch him wearily looking over his shoulder for other ships on the horizon arriving to cart the natives off to the West Indies as slaves.

Outnumbered almost two-to-one, I bet Myles Standish and William Bradford kept a nervous eye on the natives during the festivities. The first point of business upon going ashore in the spring had been to sign a treaty and exchange hostages.

This precarious relationship between the natives and colonists is missing from the standard Thanksgiving stories. The two groups got along for the most part, but there were times of struggle, with battles and fighting. Finally in 1675, war broke out. Massasoit’s son, Metacomet led the natives against the colonists in what is known as King’s Phillip’s War. The war is considered one of the bloodiest on America soil.

Missing from the scene would be many of the traditional Thanksgiving items such as cranberries, potatoes, pies and apples. Instead, the Pilgrims sat down for a meal more likely suited for either a seafood-lover or a vegetarian. Fish, lobster, eel, mussels, and oysters, as well as a dozen different veggies, dried fruit, and nuts probably rounded out the spread. And what about the turkey? Any meat served was probably venison, and early records only reveal the Pilgrims eating “wild fowl” which could have been turkey, duck, or geese.

Over time the first Thanksgiving has morphed into a memorable event of food, family, and football. It tucks autumn to bed and signals the beginning of the Christmas season. We try to incorporate some thankfulness into the day. A cousin sent me a quote by author Melody Beattie that perfectly summarizes a thankful heart.

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow."

I truly hope your house is full of feasting and thanksgiving today. I also hope you can say a prayer of gratitude for the survival of those early Pilgrims and the help they received from the Natives. Relations may not have been optimal between the two groups, but at least they started out by working together. If you have any tension or strain in a relationship with a loved one, Thanksgiving should be a day to serve up acceptance and reconciliation. Don’t wait until a war breaks out. Apologize and or forgive and enjoy the stuffing.

And don’t forget the eel.

Building Her Dream House

It’s been seven years since that dark November day when I had one final question for my mom. So I snuggled up to her for the last time like I did as a child. It was our tradition. She would scratch my head, and I would purr like a kitten.

This time, though, her cancer-ravaged body was too weak to lift a finger. She had been battling the disease, her third bout, for almost a year. She hadn’t looked or acted sick for much of the year, but now the illness was taking over. Her skin and eyes were turning yellow from the bile backed up in her tumor-filled liver. Her hair was as gray as the sunless sky and her voice was slow and tired. She had lost so much weight that her body barely made a ripple under her bedcovers.

I asked her if there was anything she wished she could have done during her life on Earth. I wasn’t interested in regrets, just dreams. I was thinking maybe a trip to Paris or writing a book.

To my great shock, she said that she wished she could have built a house. I was surprised because I didn’t know that this intelligent, hard-working, bundle of ceaseless energy had such a dream. Then in all seriousness she humbly noted that she might need a little help with some minor details such as the plumbing and electrical wiring. Apparently, despite her lack of construction experience, she had already figured out the foundation, walls, ceiling, and roof.

But part of me wasn’t surprised because the smartest woman I knew could do anything she put her mind to, including growing vegetables in the Sahara, writing code for Bill Gates’ latest vision, and teaching Martha Stewart a thing or two about cooking, cleaning, and decorating.

I immediately pictured my mom, axe in hand, clearing land in the hills surrounding her Monterey home, mixing tombstone-grey concrete with a shovel and a wheelbarrow, pounding nails into 2-x-4 after 2-x-4, and climbing a ladder to shingle a roof. I could hear her taking control of the construction, barking orders like a job-site foreman and directing the traffic of incoming dump trucks and bulldozers. I could see her stopping her work to provide sandwiches and sodas to those she hired to do the plumbing and electricity. I imagined her, when the work was done, sitting on a porch swing with my dad at sunset, watching whales in the ocean. Waiting for Thomas Kincade to stop by with his easel and brushes.

It was our last meaningful conversation. A few days later, November 8, 2003, she left her California home to be with her Lord. I was down in Los Angeles when she died. Over miles of unimaginable grief I made my way to Northern California. My own trail of tears. I fearfully stumbled into her bedroom where I had left her a few days earlier.

Her body was still in the bed and she was lying with the most peaceful expression on her face. I touched her and I kissed her. I talked to her and I said goodbye, and as I did God touched me. In almost slow motion, with tears streaming down my face, I sunk to my knees by her bedside and felt the most soothing peace come over me. It was as if God had opened me up and filled me with his presence. It was slow and warm, dripping through me like maple syrup being poured on a stack of pancakes. I could feel it coarse through my body until it reached the tips of my fingers and the bottoms of my feet. It was as Philippians says, “a peace that transcends all understanding.” And I’ll never forget it.

Later, on a sunny morning we poured her ashes into the Pacific in a cove near Carmel Beach. I read Psalm 23:6, “Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” I thought of the dream house that my mother didn’t build, and was comforted by knowing that she was now living in the Lord’s house, and how much superior that must be to anything she could have erected here on Earth.

I then read John 14:2, “In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you,” I found assurance in knowing that Jesus had a home for her in heaven.

Mark Twain said, “That when somebody you love dies, it is like when your house burns down; it isn’t for years that you realize the full extent of your loss.” Sometimes I feel like I’m still sifting through the rubble. Sometimes I get blindsided by a memory, or I uncover a hidden trinket of hers in my dad’s cupboard that transports me decades in the past.

I was so touched by the numerous sympathy cards and emails that I received. A friend wrote, “I suppose the truth of these things is that the grief we feel is really for ourselves, as your mom certainly wouldn't trade her current address for the one she just left.” I wondered what her new address looked like. Perhaps it resembles the home she dreamed of building herself.

My friend’s words were prophetic. In July of 2004, my first birthday without her arrived. I sat on the sand in Redondo Beach wishing for her to call and say, Happy Birthday. Oddly enough, that night she did, in the only dream I’ve had about her since she died. In the dream, my family was all together. My mom was still alive, but she was also still sick and because of her illness, she had to live somewhere else, some kind of hospital or care facility. Often we would go to visit her and we had pre-arranged that when she was all better, she would come back to live with us. One day we went to visit her and to our amazement she was no longer sick. We were beyond ecstatic. She was healthy, she could return home! But, then she calmly told us that she didn’t want to come home. I was crushed.

Devastated, I awoke in a fit of tears. It was November all over again. I shared my dream with my sister over breakfast the next morning. She was quickly able to discern the truth of my dream. It was a dream worthy of rejoicing. Like in the dream, my mom is healed. She is cancer-free. She is home. A home she didn’t build, but one of which she dreamed.
Living in the home her Father prepared for her.
Dwelling with Him forever.

Love Wins

I’m so glad the elections are over. I was exhausted from fast-forwarding over all of the mudslinging commercials on my DVR. Now, I can return to fast-forwarding over the regular commercials. Voting conservatively in California is like being a Cubs fan. Cursed.

There’s an old adage that says you never discuss religion and politics … except on Facebook. Social networking is more than networking. When it comes to religion and politics, Facebook is social witnessing, social soap-boxing, and social bragging.

I saw someone’s religious views listed on Facebook as, “Love Wins.” I have no idea what that means. It doesn’t tell me if the person loves Jesus or Buddha or Mohammed. But I dig it.

There’s a group in our society that is supposed to be the most loving, but they can be very unloving and, to me, appear to be quite misunderstood. There’s another group in our society that claims to be the most accepting and tolerant, but they seem to be very selective with their acceptance and tolerance.

The first group is the Christians. The second group is the liberal left.

A couple of months ago I wrote in this space how we as Americans are overlooking the dangers of Radical Islam because the vast majority of Muslims are fine, peaceful people. However, when it comes to Christianity, the radical meatballs spoil the soup for how the majority of fine, peaceful Christians are viewed and perceived. Just as all Muslims don’t fly airplanes into buildings, neither do all Christians want to bomb abortion clinics, burn the Koran on 9/11 and hate homosexuals.

I’ve been a Christian for many a year and I haven’t taken out an abortionist, set fire to any holy books, or walked the sidewalks with large cardboard signs blaming homosexuals for AIDS, the 9/11 attacks, or the general downfall of American society.

But I have been selfish.
Gossiped. Lied. Slandered. Gotten angry. Made mistakes. Basically been hypocritical.

But, it seems these days that Christians aren’t allowed to be imperfect. Last year, in a conversation with a USC football fan, I defended the Stanford head coach for running up the score in a win over USC, not because I think running up the score is admirable but because I love when USC gets beat. The USC fan yelled at me, “But you’re a Christian!” You see how imperfect I am? I let my football passions get the best of me. I should have chastised the Stanford coach. What a horrible display of disrespect! What a poor impression to make upon children (Uh, because USC never runs up the score)! Such a JWDT (Jesus wouldn’t do that) moment! I really blew it. That person will probably never come to a saving faith in Christ because I defended the Stanford football coach.

In addition to me, there are some really rotten people out there. Broken, hurting, cheating, corrupt, scandalous. In all walks of life. Politicians, athletes, businessmen, doctors, lawyers, teachers, and (gasp) Christians. If you encounter a crooked auto mechanic do you stop seeking mechanics? No, you get recommendations for a good one. Hopefully, if you run into a bad doctor, you search for a good one. I hope that one unscrupulous politician doesn’t keep you from voting. Do steroid-pumping, bribe-taking athletes prevent you from watching all sports? But if a Christian makes a mistake, we get written off as hypocritical, seriously offensive or hateful people.

As a Facebook fan, a majority of my “friends” are Christians. I am pretty sure that I haven’t seen one of them post a derogatory comment about a person of another faith, race, or sexual orientation. But I have read some comments or been given links to follow that are downright mean about Christians. Usually, these remarks come from very politically liberal folks. Now, I’m not trying to whine. Or be a crybaby. Things are much better for us believers in this day and age. I mean, early on, when our little sect was trying to get off the ground Christian-killing was a spectator sport.

Obviously, the reason for such slander is because most conservative Christians don’t agree with the social and political viewpoints of the liberal left. But I thought the left was all about equality, tolerance, and acceptance? It seems they’re … I must be careful not to fall into the same practice I’m trying to point out …. It seems that SOME liberals are not very tolerant and accepting of those who don’t agree with them.


To me that seems hypocritical. Okay, everybody’s got their own political wants, social agendas, religious worldviews. Everybody wants to make their point, get their law passed, prevent so-and-so from winning an election. I get it.

But, does that mean that respect has to be thrown out the social networking window? Just because somebody or a group of some bodies don’t agree with you, doesn’t give you the right to pick and choose who you are tolerant and accepting of. Remember that what you write, post, and share is available for people of all walks of life to read. If you have to err, please err on the side of respect.

I’d love to rebuke some Christians are that giving us a bad name. But other than myself, I don’t know anyone in this habit. But, Mr. Liberal Lefty, I do want to apologize for those who have offended, hurt, and slandered you. There is no place for that. You deserve the same amount of respect that I’m asking of from you. Please remember that we Christians are allowed to have and defend our beliefs. But we must hold them and articulate them in a loving and respectful way.

The Apostle Paul knew a thing or two about hate, love, and hypocrites. A man who once persecuted Christians, became their greatest traveling preacher, setting up churches and writing epistles. And yet he considered himself the “chief of all sinners”. (Imagine if Paul had Facebook: rough day today, got stoned again.)

He also wrote some pretty good passages about love. He said that a Christian without love is a resounding gong and a clanging cymbal. It’s hard to think of a more annoying or offensive sound, except maybe the USC fight song. So, Mr. Conservative Christian, don’t be a gong.

Because love should win. For both sides. Even on Facebook.