Good Questions: Happy Thanksgiving, Where to Give, Bible Beaters at the Workplace, Favorite Thanksgiving Quotes

Happy Thanksgiving

Dear Dr. Tom: Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family! I’m off to Louisiana tomorrow to spend Thanksgiving with mine.

—G.P., Chattanooga, Tennessee

Dear G.P.: Cajun Feastin’ to you. And the dream of enough to eat, with friends and family to share the table, goes out to all humankind. Although it’s an American holiday, I think Thanksgiving belongs to the world. Give thanks for the possibility of peace and prosperity. Enjoy!

Where to Give

Dear Dr. Tom: I live a moderate life as a retiree on fixed income. I see the faces of starving children on TV and I want to help, but there are so many good causes! Many highly responsible, nonprofit agencies and religious organizations need support, but my money is limited. I feel overwhelmed. I don’t know what to do.

—Helpless Helper, Altoona, Pennsylvania

Dear Altoona Helper: I see a lot of heads nodding out there. There are so many people in this world who need assistance just to get by, through no fault of their own. It isn’t a new problem. Even Jesus said, “You will always have the poor with you.”

That quote appears like a rare constellation of thought across three gospels—found in Matthew, Mark, and John. The author of Luke apparently ignored that part of the narrative, probably to avoid showing Jesus as accepting poverty as a permanent status for some people. Luke’s Jesus is always reaching out to the poor and mighty.

But you aren’t asking for a study of New Testament sources. You’re expressing frustration—maybe feeling a wee bit guilty?—because you can’t rescue everyone. Well, according to the majority opinion of gospel writers, Jesus agreed with you. Choosing what to do when and where to help, can be daunting. Yet, there are things we can do for people, the wise steward gives whatever help is available when Spirit summons us to the task. My suggestion it to consider prayerfully what resources you can commit and then let God guide you to select where you will assist. Don’t forget, volunteering or donating goods to a local food bank is as important as writing a big check.

You never know how much good a seemingly small action can do. Follow your guidance, and let God circulate the blessings.

From Sunday School to Office Sermons

Dear Dr. Tom: A coworker is always declaring, “The Bible says we should do this,” or, “The Bible says we shouldn’t do that.” I don’t know the fine print of the Bible, but I loved the stories and verses we read and discussed at Sunday school when I was a child. How do I reply as a grown-up when confronted by somebody who knows the Scripture, chapter, and verse?

—Stumbling Follower, Colorado Springs, Colorado

Dear Follower: Grown-ups get to make their own decisions. The Bible is a different book in everybody’s hands. Look at the rainbow of belief systems espoused by people who say they’re just reading the Bible and finding the obvious truth. Your best tactic might be to avoid confrontation, but if you have to face a zealot day after day, maybe you need to settle the issue calmly and definitively. Try something like, “I appreciate your freedom to tell me what you think, but you need to respect my right to see it differently without my explaining why I do. We’re done discussing religion. This is a workspace.”

Or give the person a Daily Word^®. Either the coworker will be impressed by your spirituality or decide you’re of the Devil and back away quickly.

Favorite Thanksgiving Quotes

Dear Dr. Tom: Do you have a favorite Thanksgiving quote or reading? I like Julia Child: “People who love to eat are always the best people.”

—Happy Cooker in New England

Dear Happy: My favorite is from the great harvest song written by English hymnist Henry Alford in 1844.

Come, ye thankful people, come,
raise the song of harvest home;
all is safely gathered in,
ere the winter storms begin.

In an era of refrigerator ships and global crops for all seasons, we miss the impact of those words today. If our ancestors did not get the harvest “safely gathered” in barns before winter, people starved. That was a true hymn of Thanksgiving.

God our Maker, doth provide,
For our wants to be supplied;
Come to God’s own temple, come;
Raise the song of harvest home!

And all the people said … well, you know.