Riggin' Up the Lights: Why Am I So Tentative?

                Who first came up with the idea of putting lights on houses for Christmas?  I’m sure we’ll never know.  It is a tradition in which I have participated off and on for my entire adult life, sometimes under protest, sometimes not.  I am still a bit conflicted about the practice.  On the one hand, I think maybe it devalues the central reason for observing Christmas.  On the other hand, we live in a culture that celebrates birthdays by throwing parties, so why wouldn’t we go all out to celebrate the birth of our Lord?  I do believe the line of demarcation between tasteful celebration and irreverent gaudiness has been crossed with illuminated snowmen, elf communities, commercial cartoon characters, and singing and dancing Santas coming to life every time a motion detector is tripped.

                So, there I was today, on the roof with my string of lights and clips that cling to the edges of the composition shingles.  It reminded me of a song we in the community choir, The Amador Choraliers, have memorized, “Riggin’ Up the Lights.”  It musically tells of the plight of a husband who dutifully rigs up the neighborhood’s most exorbitant light display, despite being afraid of heights.  I am not, medically speaking, afraid of heights.  In my twenties, I worked my way through seminary washing windows.  It took some time to get used to walking on narrow ledges ten stories above certain death, but I did get used to it.  I also grew accustomed to being at the top of a 28’ ladder, in freezing temperatures, with a screwdriver stuck in the frozen ground behind one of the ladder’s feet to keep it from slipping down the slight slope of someone’s yard, using both hands to wash a window.  I did some nearly miraculous things at the top of those ladders, and seldom had anything that could be described as a moment of panic.

Bored with the house?

                So, why is it I felt so uncomfortable on the roof of a one-story house today?  Besides having watched Clark Griswald’s and Tim Taylor’s antics many times over the years,  I can think of a couple of possible explanations.  Age is the first culprit that comes to mind.  I am no longer twenty-something.  I don’t feel like I am sixty-two, but my knee, my shoulder and my back keep trying to convince me.  I also understand there is a tendency for people to have equilibrium problems as they grow older.  I believe I maybe, possibly, might have a spell while I'm up there.  It could be all or some of these conditions combined to give me pause standing on shingles 16’ above a very hard porch.  Everything I had to do up there today had to be done at the edge of the gabled cliff, on a roof with a rather steep pitch.  The pitch seemed much steeper when my feet occasionally slipped an inch or two.  Yes, age could have been the immediate cause of my anxiety.

                Wisdom could also be the offender.  I have noticed a marked increase in the amount of wisdom I possess now compared to when I was twenty-something.  Much of that is derived, unavoidably, from my twenty-something experiences.  Wisdom also increases with responsibility.  I can’t afford to hit the ground from 16’ up.  I no longer bounce as I once did.  I no longer heal as quickly as I used to.  I just can’t get away with being stupid as often as I once could.  Old-guy life is much more unforgiving than young-guy life.  Today, when I set the ladder for my ascent, I made sure it was on flat ground.  I moved slowly across the sanded surface that is composition roofing material.  I sat while near the precipice of the roof.  I waited until my wife was home before taking on the elevated task.  These periods of wise behavior are a direct result of a vast accumulation of knowledge over five decades filled with some rather unwise decisions and actions.  Yes, wisdom may be the greater contributor to my uneasiness today.

                Oh, for the opportunity to combine the wisdom of age with the body of youth!  What task would I not eagerly accept and enthusiastically carry out?  God has not destined us for such super powers.  He has given us older, wiser folks opportunities to transmit our wisdom to one or two successive generations.  Unfortunately, he has apparently equipped those younger generations with exceptional abilities to ignore all such attempts by older, wiser generations. Evidence of this is the number of men injured using extension ladders while riggin' up the Christmas tree lights every year.  This wintertime accident is second only to the number of people who chop their hands off while snowmobiling.*

                The lights are up on the house roofline.  No bones were broken.  No bruises were made.  No blood was spilled.  All in all, it was a quite successful day.

*[Accident statistic retrieved from http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091008144357AAWDP6n]

Thanksgiving Day, A Little Reminder

Grace by Eric Enstrom

                It is not “Turkey Day.”  It was not established based on the colonists giving thanks to their Native American friends who helped them learn how to survive in the New World, and technically, the colonists were not “Puritans.”  Yes, I love to dash to pieces bits of historical misinformation people have gathered through careless teaching or too eager acceptance of fond traditions.  That’s a major character flaw to some, but what I think makes me so loveable.

                The Puritans were a group of religious people disgruntled with the Church of England.  Being disgruntled with anything in England was legal, but expressing those thoughts and feelings was not.  The Puritans, therefore, worked very carefully to change, or purify, the official church from within.  They eventually gave up.  But they were not part of the group who landed at Plymouth in November of 1620.     Those folks, who shared the boat ride with a number of nominally religious people, were technically called Separatists.  A decade or so later, Governor Bradford called them Pilgrims.  They had long ago given up on changing the Church of England, and fled to Holland where they could escape the persecution being meted out by the authorities.  However, fearful of their children growing up in a foreign country, learning a foreign language and customs, and never knowing their English heritage, and choosing not to try to change the language and customs of their Dutch hosts, they sought to continue their journey to the colony of Virginia, which they believed extended to the Hudson River.  After giving up on reaching their original destination, due to bad weather, they decided to disembark on the west side of Cape Cod.  They lived on the ship until housing was built, then the ship left.

                Their hastily made shelters were not sufficient for such bad conditions.  About half of their number died of malnutrition and exposure during what turned out to be a very harsh winter.  The following spring, a former captive/slave of Captain John Smith’s, Squanto, showed them how to plant crops, particularly corn.  In the fall of 1621, they harvested their first crops in their new land.  They gathered to give thanks to God for supplying all their needs.  I am sure they were thankful for the help Squanto and others from his father’s tribe had given them, but that was not why they gathered.  They felt a need to praise God!

                We don’t actually know what they had for dinner that day.  It is likely the meal included seafood, vegetables, and some wild meat such as venison and maybe turkey.  Today, because so many people have no clue regarding the basis for Thanksgiving, the food and/or the company have become the centers of attention.  Many do not roast a turkey for their main course, choosing to substitute enchiladas, spaghetti, ham, salmon or something else for the center platter.  In many homes, a prayer learned by rote from somebody may be recited.  In many other homes, no prayer is even considered, unless the host home is within the Detroit Lions broadcast area.  Then a prayer may be uttered in an attempt to avoid national embarrassment.

                  National observance of Thanksgiving Day was sporadic and generally confined to the New England region until Abraham Lincoln called for the entire nation to pause to give thanks on the last Thursday of November.  Following is his declaration, written in 1863, in the midst of the Civil War:
                “The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies.  To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.  In the midst of a civil war…peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict…[The war effort] has not arrested the plough,…the axe has enlarged the borders,…and the mines…have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore…Population has steadily increased,…and the country…is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.  No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things.  They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.  It has seemed to me fit and proper that [these gifts of God] should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People.  I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens… to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.  And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience…implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity[sic] and Union…” ~Abraham Lincoln~ [Source: U.S. National Archives]

                The president, and his Secretary of State, who is said to have written the first draft, believed we ought to look to the blessings of God, which are taken for granted by most of us, in the midst of unimaginable strife, hardship and pessimism.  Hardly a family in the country went untouched by the hundreds of thousands of deaths during the war.  However, they could be thankful for so much.  It is also interesting to note that the pilgrims praised God and thanked him while still not fully recovered from the loss of half their group.  Mothers, fathers, children were buried within eyesight of their feast.  But they were thankful, and expressed that gratitude to a loving God.

                As you gather with loved ones this Thanksgiving Day, feast upon bounty the like of which is only dreamed of in most of the world, and maybe watch a little football, don’t forget to consider the author of all those blessings and countless others.  Pause in the midst of celebration of family and food, and remember the one who has made it all possible.  Make it a day of giving thanks to Almighty God.

Pet a Dog, Adopt a Child

                One Seinfeld episode I particularly enjoyed had the crew heading out to the Hamptons to see some friends’ new “bay-beee.”  While there, Elaine meets the couple’s pediatrician, a handsome, single man who immediately catches her interest.  During a conversation, he says she is “breathtaking.”  This, of course, results in Elaine believing he really thinks she’s something!  Who wouldn’t?  That is, until he uses the same descriptive for the ugliest baby any of them have ever seen.  Elaine grows confused.  How could he apply the same adjective to both of them?  A word that was a great compliment became a great insult as its definition was downgraded by applying it to a less attractive countenance.

                I have long thought the same conditions have devalued the word “hero.”  The definition used to imply that a person had put his or her life in jeopardy for the sake of others.  Now I hear it being used to describe people who perform such mundane acts as helping someone cross a parking lot or bandaging up somebody’s leg.  While I am confident the recipients of these actions had strong emotional reasons for applying the moniker, those detached from those situations should know better than to repeat the accolade.  By applying the term “hero” to those who don’t demonstrate extraordinary bravery or risk their lives for the sake of others, we are demeaning those who truly deserve the title.

                I strongly believe we are doing a horrible injustice to a vast population of children who, through no fault of their own, find themselves in the unenviable situation of having no biological parents or of having been given up for adoption by a parent or parents who know they can’t be the parents they need to be for those children.  These children are “adopted” by people who are more than willing to raise them as their own children; they are delighted, excited, and thrilled for the privilege.  The word “adopted” means to be accepted into someone’s family and raised as if the adopted person was one of the family.  In fact, both legally and emotionally, these adopted children are part of the family doing the adopting.  What a wonderful process!  The Bible tells us when we acknowledge Christ as the Son of God and commit ourselves to following him, God “adopts” us into his family, with all the rights and privileges a biological child would have.  Adoption is (or certainly should be) a joyous union of child and parents, and perhaps new siblings.

                So, what is my gripe?  I hate (yes, hate) the idea that when people decide to get an animal from a shelter they are said to “adopt” that dog or cat.  I readily acknowledge the fact that some people, perhaps many people, do think of their pets as “family.”  However, I don’t accept that as normal, healthy or morally right.  God very clearly set us humans apart from the animal world, giving us an exalted position over them.  They can be useful to us for food, work, protection, rodent control, and even cuteness.  We can form emotional attachments to them, and mourn their passing, but they are not people.  It irritates me when people refer to getting an animal from a shelter as “adopting” them because the word is thus downgraded, and therefore, demeans the children who are adopted into loving homes to be raised as children of those families. 

                “Hi, my name’s Tom.  I’m adopted.”

                “Hello, Tom.  I’m Fred.  We adopted a dog.”

                Doesn't that just sound wrong?  I am going to try to start a little revolution from this post.  Please, don’t misuse the word.  As I have said before, “Words matter!”  And please don’t allow others to get away with wrongly using the word.  Be kind, but correct them, explaining how demeaning it is to adopted children and their parents.  This is much more important than signing a Twinkie petition.