Deuteronomy 8: 1-20 (links validated 5/17/23)
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Remember to Remember
There’s a story about an old man, who every week, walked from his house down to the ocean, carrying a bucket of shrimp. He would walk to the end of the pier, reach in his bucket, and feed the seagulls. Slowly, silently, he distributed the contents of his bucket, every Friday evening, while the sun slipped over the horizon. His name was Eddie Rickenbacker, the most decorated WWI fighter pilot. In 1942, during WWII, President Roosevelt dispatched Eddie with a special message to General MacArthur in the Pacific theatre. The B-17 in which Captain Rickenbacker was flying got lost, ran out of fuel and ditched in the sea. The crew of eight made it into life rafts and began a long and desperate fight to survive the sun, sharks banging on the bottom of the raft, waves, but most of all hunger. They ran out of food on day three. On day eight, when it seemed the end had come and there was no hope, and they had prayed what they thought were their last prayers together, Captain Rickenbacker, in the raft, was dozing with his cap over his eyes. He felt something. A bird had landed on his head. He thought if he could catch it, they might survive. He caught it. And they ate it. And used its intestines for bait and caught fish. The capture of that seagull gave them enough hope and strength and fortitude that seven of the eight men survived the 24 days adrift in their rafts...Gratitude: A Matter of Perspective
It was the day after Thanksgiving. A woman caught her husband weighing himself on the scale. He was sucking in his stomach.
"That won't help you, Fred," the woman said. "You know that, don't you?"
"Oh it helps a lot," said Fred. "It's the only way I can see the numbers!"...Grace and Gratitude
The picture you see there — painted by the famous Saturday Evening Post illustrator, Norman Rockwell — isn’t a Thanksgiving holiday painting. But it is about giving thanks. Its title is “Saying Grace.” Rockwell painted it in 1951, for a Saturday Evening Post cover. The setting of the painting is perfectly ordinary. It’s a humble diner, the sort of place they used to call a luncheonette (or, in less kindly terms, a greasy spoon). Two figures have attracted the gaze of everyone else in the restaurant — especially, in this detail view, the two young men on the left, idly smoking their cigarettes and sipping their coffee. To the right is a grandmother, her hands clasped in prayer. Joining her in that simple act of piety is a young boy, her grandson no doubt...
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We Have a Story, Too
In 1637, all of Europe was at war, in the midst of the Thirty Years War. It was a terrible time. There was a walled city called Eilenburg in Germany and thousands of refugees came there seeking safety. Then the plague came. Soon thousands upon thousands upon thousands of children and teenagers and men and women were dying. At this point in history a 51-year-old pastor named Martin Rinkart, was serving a Lutheran Church in Eilenburg. In one year, more than 4,000 people died, including Martin’s own wife. At one point, he was the only pastor remaining in that city – one had moved to a safer place and Martin performed the funerals of the other two. So, in the midst of his own grief, Martin was conducting 40-50 funerals a day. To his congregation he said, “We must lean on God’s presence. We must be the presence of Jesus for one another. We must have the sustaining presence of the spirit to guide us or we will not survive.” And in this time when thousands of people were dying every day, Martin Rinkart was so focused on the presence of God that he wrote a hymn, “Now Thank We All Our God”...