Tag Thanksgiving

A Reflection on Thanksgiving

Allen Frederick Leave a comment

🍂 A Thanksgiving Reflection 🍂

Now that the turkey has been carved and the last slice of pie has been served, let’s pause together and remember the blessings we’ve enjoyed this past year.

I want to take a moment to thank each of you—my faithful readers and supporters—for walking this journey with me. Your encouragement, your comments, and simply your presence here have been a gift I don’t take lightly.

Thanksgiving is more than a holiday; it’s a reminder that gratitude turns ordinary days into extraordinary ones. As we look back on the year behind us, may we carry forward hearts full of thankfulness, and may we look ahead with hope and prayer for continued blessings in the year to come.

From my heart to yours: may peace, joy, and abundance overflow in your homes and lives.

Happy Thanksgiving, dear friends. 🦃✨

The Mayflower Compact and the Roots of Economic Freedom and Private Property |

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The Pilgrims after arriving in Plymouth set up a colony and enacted for the first time a COMMUNAL living arraignment which they soon abandoned because of it’s failure to provide for the needs of the colonists. Instead they replaced the communal concept with that of private property and individual industry and it was from this model that abundance and wealth abounded!

Communism has failed along with socialism because it replaces the individual with a collective and substitutes the wants and desires of the individual with the needs of the collective. There is no incentive to achieve because there is no room for advancement of one’s state. All are equal and all are unhappy!

I am afraid too many have never learned this lesson from history and are doomed to repeat it!

Arriving in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in November 1620, the Pilgrims brought with them the economic assumptions present within their own religious congregation, which sometimes conflicted with those of hierarchical English society.

Jim Otteson, visiting scholar at the Feulner Institute’s Simon Center for American Studies at Heritage, emphasizes the religious dimension to their social and economic thinking.

“The fact that the Pilgrims wrote an agreement and voluntarily signed it,” Otteson declares, “presupposes that they saw themselves as morally equal. They signed it as peers and equals, and did not ask the king for permission to do so.”

Those religious believers, he says, perceived one another as made in the image of God. That belief created a social equality among their party and established the fertile soil for economic liberty in New England.

Samuel Gregg, visiting scholar at the Simon Center for American Studies, identifies several assumptions that guided the Pilgrims about private property and economic liberty, and influenced the British colonies and later the United States.

Preeminent in the Pilgrims’ economic worldview was the concept of private property. Unlike their Jamestown counterparts in 1607, the community did not undertake the disastrous and utopian approach of collectivization—that is, the idea that their property would be held in common by the entire community. 

Instead, the passengers embarked on the understanding that they would have the right to own and develop their property, for their own good and that of the community.

The Mayflower Compact and the Roots of Economic Freedom and Private Property | The Heritage Foundation

Thanksgiving and Leftovers

Allen Frederick Leave a comment

A Turkey.

Image via Wikipedia

Ah those wonderful Thanksgiving dinner leftovers!  They are just as good the day after as the day of, at least in my opinion.  I can eat turkey sandwiches for a week after Thanksgiving and not tire of them.  It is the week after Thanksgiving.  Many have left the warm confines of their homes and ventured out into the wild world of Black Friday.  Some were out at midnight for those specially advertised sales.  Others have been waiting in line since way before daylight.

But not me; nope  I have made it a rule for myself to do everything possible to never even leave home on the day after Thanksgiving.  If at all possible I’m staying in, watching movies and yes, eating on those delectable Thanksgiving leftovers.  I might even watch the news to see how shoppers have fared on their day-after excursions.  Some of the stories are tragic and others just plain old funny.  On either end of the stick I’m glad that I’m not one of the stories.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I don’t have anything against those who enjoy the Black Friday experience – To each his own.  I really hope they find what they are looking for and have a wonderful time in the process.  Folks it just isn’t my cup of tea and I don’t think you’ll ever find me out in the crowd.  If you need me, I’ll probably be right here at home.

The word “leftovers” often doesn’t get the right rating.  A lot of people snarl their nose at leftovers.  In the Bible there were two times when a miracle of Jesus produced leftovers.  Once He had fed five thousand people with a few fish and a few loaves of bread and on another occasion the number was three thousand with the same menu.  Each time there was more leftovers than what He originally started with.  You know what; I think I might have liked to have tried those Heavenly leftovers.

In Nehemiah 12:46 we read, “For in the days of David and Asaph of old there were chiefs of the singers, and songs of praise and thanksgiving to God.”  The people were remembering how it had been during the days of David and Asaph.  The offices of the singers were very important to these men in the worship of God.  After their thanksgiving celebration the people of Israel under Nehemiah’s direction were trying to duplicate that so as to re-establish the wonderful worship of days gone by.  In a sense they were making trying to stretch the leftovers of their own worship for the coming days.  I believe that was a good thing.

When we have an unusually good time of worship with our Lord we want to bask in the leftovers of that experience, and we should.  That wonderful feeling of worship and closeness to God is something we want to last on and on.  It makes us to want to stretch that experience until the next one.  It’s a Heavenly leftover that we can always look forward to.

I pray that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day.  I sincerely hope that things went well for you and you made memories that will serve as pleasant leftovers for a long time to come.  We should want those kinds of leftovers.  We need to cherish those times and remember them in our hearts.  We never know when tragedy may strike and take away some of those family members we love.  But we can always relive those good times in our minds.

It’s the same with our spiritual thanksgiving.  Those times well spent with our Lord serve as pleasant memories that can encourage us in days to come.  Hold fast to them.  Never forget them.  Keep them close to your heart.  Then draw from them as the need arises.  Of course there will be new experiences in the Lord.  We’ll have more good times to come.  But never forget them and always give thanks.

Jerry D. Ousley is the Author of five books, “Soul Challenge”, “Soul Journey” “Ordeal” “The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional” and his first novel “The Shoe Tree.”  Listen to the daily broadcast Spirit Bread.  Find out more by visiting www.spiritbread.com

Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com

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Hallmark Encouraging people to Give Thanks this Thanksgiving

Allen Frederick 1 Comment

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KANSAS CITY, Mo., Nov. 8, 2011 — /PRNewswire/ — Thanksgiving can be a perfect time to reconnect with friends and loved ones. With nearly 240 Thanksgiving cards available this season, Hallmark is encouraging people to pause and give thanks to their loved ones. According to Hallmark Research, more than 70 percent of Thanksgiving cards are mailed, the highest percentage for any season.  

“Thanksgiving is a time for gratitude and reflecting on our blessings,” said Kristi Stanley, Hallmark Editorial Director.

For ease and convenience, there are Postage-Paid Greetings available this Thanksgiving in many different designs and messages. Just sign, seal and send.  The postage is treated like a Forever stamp, and its value will always be equal to the price of a standard First-Class stamp, regardless of when it’s mailed.

“Our postage paid cards give consumers an easy way to reconnect with friends and family from across the miles,” said Stanley. “Even if they can’t be together at Thanksgiving, a card is a wonderful way for them to tell someone how much they’re loved and appreciated.”

Like the idea of sharing gratitude in Thanksgiving cards, but not sure what to say?  Use these thought starters for a truly personal Thanksgiving greeting:It’s friends like you that … The only thing better than turkey and pumpkin pie is … The guys have football, but we have … It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without …

Thanksgiving Cards, including Postage-Paid Greetings, are available at Hallmark Gold Crown​® stores and participating Hallmark retailers nationwide. Use the store locator on Hallmark.com to find the nearest Hallmark Gold Crown store.  Postage-paid card prices begin at $2.50.

Hallmark makes the world a more caring place by helping people express what’s in their hearts and spend time together – a privilege few other companies in the world enjoy. Hallmark greeting cards and other products are found in more than 40,000 retail outlets in the U.S., including the network of flagship Hallmark Gold Crown® stores. The brand also reaches people online at Hallmark.com and on television through Hallmark Hall of Fame​ original movies and cable’s top-rated Hallmark Channel. Worldwide, Hallmark offers products in more than 30 languages available in 100 countries. This privately held company is based in Kansas City, Mo., and is led by the third generation of the founding Hall family. Visit http://corporate.hallmark.com for more details.

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The lesson of Thanksgiving: private property is best

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The lesson of Thanksgiving: private property is best.

 

The First Thanksgiving, painted by Jean Leon G...
Image via Wikipedia

If individuals can take from a common pot regardless of how much they put in, each person has an incentive to be a free-rider, to do as little as possible because what one fails to take will be taken by someone else.  Soon, the pot is empty.What private property does – as the Pilgrims discovered –is connect effort to reward, creating an incentive for people to produce far more.  Then, if there’s a free market, people will trade their surpluses to others for the things they lack.  Mutual exchange for mutual benefit makes the community richer. John Stossel

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