In the Meantime
Bob Wickizer
Jeremiah 33:14-16
We have romanticized, conflated and mythologized the First Thanksgiving in the United States to a degree worse than George Washington and the cherry tree. Nonetheless it is always good to join not only with family and friends for a meal of thanksgiving, but perhaps to spend time in another setting sharing a meal with people different from our own circle and giving thanks for salvation itself. We should never forget and never fail to give thanks for the simple fact that at BOTH the Jamestown settlement in Virginia of 1608 AND at Plymouth in Massachusetts Bay colony, the local Indians literally saved those early groups of Europeans from starvation and certain disaster in their first winter.
Today we are faced with celebrating one of our most cherished national holidays against a backdrop of fear and uncertainty. People in major cities are afraid to go out shopping during the holidays for fear of a terrorist attack. No one is talking about the elephant in the living room that is a certainty of terrorist sleeper cells already living among us biding their time. Our fear has led us to call for closing the doors to immigrants and refugees while we ignore the fact that aside from native peoples we are all immigrants and Jesus himself was a refugee in troubled times. And although it seems unrelated on the surface, I think a national climate of fear and suspicion has helped fuel an increase in racially motivated shootings. This cloud of fear in which we now live has become a national spiritual concern that cannot be fixed with bullets and bombs.
Those who have no faith will rely only on violence to keep them safe while those of us with faith will understand that violence is only a temporary fix and a measure of last resort; that violence only breeds more violence no matter how just the cause may be.
Yet between fear and violence, fear is the most dangerous because fear causes us to forget who we are as a nation ...
Bob Wickizer
Jeremiah 33:14-16
We have romanticized, conflated and mythologized the First Thanksgiving in the United States to a degree worse than George Washington and the cherry tree. Nonetheless it is always good to join not only with family and friends for a meal of thanksgiving, but perhaps to spend time in another setting sharing a meal with people different from our own circle and giving thanks for salvation itself. We should never forget and never fail to give thanks for the simple fact that at BOTH the Jamestown settlement in Virginia of 1608 AND at Plymouth in Massachusetts Bay colony, the local Indians literally saved those early groups of Europeans from starvation and certain disaster in their first winter.
Today we are faced with celebrating one of our most cherished national holidays against a backdrop of fear and uncertainty. People in major cities are afraid to go out shopping during the holidays for fear of a terrorist attack. No one is talking about the elephant in the living room that is a certainty of terrorist sleeper cells already living among us biding their time. Our fear has led us to call for closing the doors to immigrants and refugees while we ignore the fact that aside from native peoples we are all immigrants and Jesus himself was a refugee in troubled times. And although it seems unrelated on the surface, I think a national climate of fear and suspicion has helped fuel an increase in racially motivated shootings. This cloud of fear in which we now live has become a national spiritual concern that cannot be fixed with bullets and bombs.
Those who have no faith will rely only on violence to keep them safe while those of us with faith will understand that violence is only a temporary fix and a measure of last resort; that violence only breeds more violence no matter how just the cause may be.
Yet between fear and violence, fear is the most dangerous because fear causes us to forget who we are as a nation ...
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