Don't Be A Turkey

Sunday Check-In Post

Turkey at Tensas River NWR, November 7, 2023

It’s Thanksgiving week as I check in with you this Sunday evening. I hope you’ve had a good week as we approach a busy time for most people. Maybe for you it’s travel, shopping, cooking, or a combination of all of it. There are sports events that happen on Thanksgiving Day. I remember as a child visiting my grandmother’s home in Mississippi. My grandfather and uncles all went out hunting on Thanksgiving Day. I didn’t go for many years because I was too young. Other years, well, I’ll tell you one day about the ONE time my grandfather took me hunting. I cured him of that idea.

Still, everyone’s in a bit of a hurry, the stores are crowded, and there’s a sense of anticipation and expectation. And exhaustion. That’s the problem. We can get so caught up in making everything just right that we are too tired to enjoy it.

There are many strategies for dealing with this. I saw this one, and it makes sense:

Well, it’s worth a try. But I guess that would make you a bit of a turkey! I have a devotional about the ‘Real’ Thanksgiving Turkeys located HERE. Hint: they do not have feathers!

While visiting Tensas River NWR recently I saw this flock of turkeys. I know, you think it’s supposed to be a gaggle of turkeys (so did I). But Patrick O’Donnell, on the Birdzilla website, says that wild turkeys are “flocks”. Domesticated turkeys are either “gaggles” or a “rafter”. If you want to argue with someone who writes for Birdzilla, be my guest. I do believe my paternal grandmother was quite familiar with Wild Turkey of another sort, but that’s for another day. These turkeys were not sticking around to have their photo taken, but I just kept on snapping the camera as they made their way into the woods.

I don’t know about you, but there’s nothing really about that vision that says, “I’d be great on the table for your Thanksgiving meal!” … but turkey it is. Unless you are a ham person. In Louisiana, it is not unheard of for a nice thick gumbo to make an appearance, with a scoop of potato salad for good measure. When the weather is cool, it’s hard to turn down gumbo. Gumbo can take all kinds of forms, and of course, I like my Maggy’s the best.

Gumbo sounds good to this turkey!

Gumbo sounds good to this turkey too! I don’t know what that is on his head, but it is about as attractive as the rest of him. Did you know that Benjamin Franklin wanted a turkey to be the national bird? Well, you should know he did not. Well, that’s enough turkish reflections.

This Week

Forsythe Church of Christ will have a Family Thanksgiving Devotional on Tuesday night at 6. We always meet on Wednesdays, but meeting on Tuesdays gives some elbow room to our families this very busy time of the year. I’ll be working on the concluding sermon in the series Reconnect With God, and we will visit the story of Josiah the reformer. If you’re local, we would love for you to join us. Our kids have been preparing for a Christmas program that will be December 17th, and we’re all very excited about that.

Reading

I reported last week that I was reading Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World by Christian Cooper. I’m about halfway through but I felt obliged to revisit a mention of this book because it is quite different than I was expecting. I was very interested in the birding adventures, and even the perspective of how being a black man may have played into that activity. However, a large portion of the book is about his experience as a gay black man (I think that should have made it into the title!) and his autobiographical experiences in working for Marvel Comics. I have enjoyed the birding sections. The other sections are not graphic, by any means, but it is not the book I thought I was getting. It is a well-written book and I imply no insult or discouragement from reading the book. Just know what you’re getting!

I finally finished Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis. I think I said before that I wished I had read this when I was 30. However, I can see why it remains a classic. I appreciated so much of his approach and thought process. I did get a little lost in the last section of the book in his discussion of the trinity, but I blame myself and not his writing!

Since I’m going to do a series on the Holy Spirit in my Wednesday class soon, I have opened several books (in addition to the Bible of course!), including Jack Cottrell’s The Holy Spirit: A Biblical Study. Jack recently passed away. He was quite a resource of conservative Bible teaching. His book The Faith Once For All: Bible Doctrine For Today is a jewell. Also I acquired Robert Finley's book, The Holy Spirit Our Helper. I do not know much about Lennox Zamore, but I had his Wind and Fire: The Seven Works of the Holy Spirit in my Kindle collection, as well as R. C. Sproul’s Who Is the Holy Spirit? I’ll scan through others and will not be able to read all of these in completeness, but it’s a big study. There are a lot of resources to consider.

After reading a post by Shannan Martin about the challenge of homelessness, I bought Kevin Nye’s Grace Can Lead Us Home: A Christian Call to End Homelessness. It’s a challenging subject but worthy of our time - since it is something I believe is close to the heart of Jesus. You can subscribe to Kevin Nye’s newsletter HERE.

At this moment I’m not reading any fiction, but I hope to start something new soon.

I also lead a weekly Men’s Devotional on the YouVersion app. If you’d like to read along with us, let me know and we’ll try to make that happen.

Watching

Murder at the End of the World is an FX series that I’m watching on Hulu. It’s one of those annoying shows that drops one episode per week! Two are available (as I write this). It falls into the category of ‘locked room” murder mysteries - that is the body was found in a locked room and that makes discovery of the culprit more difficult. We are enjoying the story very much. Like so much of the media today, the language is not always what I would like. So be aware of that.

Everything else I’m watching is fairly unexciting and mild. I am still watching The Voice, but if I miss it I am not crushed. When I can’t find something I most often turn on old episodes of Mary Tyler Moore or Murder, She Wrote. I’m making my way through them slowly, having started at the beginning. There’s the added bonus that when I turn on either of these, someone in my house rolls their eyes. Mostly, I don’t enjoy watching television for long periods of time anyway.

Interview

A few weeks ago I was blessed to be interviewed by author, professor, and musician Jennifer Rundlet on her blog God Thru The Arts. That post is HERE.

I do hope that you have a happy Thanksgiving. Whether that involves travel, family, and food or work, solitude, and contemplation. I have several friends who are facing their first holiday season after significant losses. That’s really hard and nothing can really remove the sting. Survival, pressing forward purposefully, deciding to find some joy even when your heart is not in it - all good things. But nothing makes the hurt go away. So, hang in there friends. Last year I presented a message called WHEN THE HOLIDAYS ARE HARD. Maybe it will be an encouragement to you.

Thanks for reading, liking, and maybe even sharing this post! I’d be THANKFUL! What’s been going on in your world? I’d like to know. Work hard, rest well, and stay connected. The world needs you.

Previous Posts Include: Egret at Sunset, November Nights, and Friends and Stories