A photograph, by my wife, of a sunset at Corona del Mar<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I published this 2015 Thanksgiving column in the Deseret News<\/em>:<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Although American Thanksgiving Day began as a harvest festival, it\u2019s not about eating.\u00a0 Most of us eat quite well\u2014often too well\u2014every day, so meals aren\u2019t special.\u00a0 It\u2019s not even really about family.\u00a0 As its name implies, it\u2019s about giving thanks.<\/span><\/p>\nAnd we have much for which to be thankful.<\/span><\/p>\nWhy is there a universe in the first place?\u00a0 Why is it so precisely fine-tuned as to produce us?\u00a0 The great twentieth-century atheistic astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle concluded, rather grumpily, that the whole thing is \u201ca put-up job,\u201d that \u201ca superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology.\u201d \u00a0\u201cAs we look out into the universe,\u201d wrote the Anglo-American mathematical physicist Freeman Dyson, of Princeton\u2019s Institute for Advanced Study, \u201cand identify the many accidents of physics and astronomy that have worked together to our benefit, it almost seems as if the universe must in some sense have known that we were coming.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nOurs, says the British physicist Paul Davies, is \u201ca Goldilocks Universe.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s \u201cjust right.\u201d\u00a0 And so is the globe on which we live, as demonstrated in recent books bearing such titles as \u201cPrivileged Planet\u201d and \u201cRare Earth.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nOur bodies are phenomenally complicated; our brains, some scientists say, are the most physically complex objects in the known universe.\u00a0 Stars and galaxies are simple in comparison.<\/span><\/p>\nMost readers of this column enjoy the privilege of American citizenship, or of something rather like it.\u00a0 There are, today, a number of free countries that respect human rights.\u00a0 But many are unfree and oppressive.\u00a0 There are many prosperous nations, too\u2014but also many that are very poor.\u00a0 We should be mindful of those less fortunate than ourselves, but also grateful for the blessings that we enjoy and not complacent about them.<\/span><\/p>\nAlthough most of us are isolated or insulated from the production of food and take it for granted, we have easy access to diets of a richness and variety that would have been unimaginable even to our relatively recent ancestors and to many in the world still today.<\/span><\/p>\nGutenberg\u2019s printing press and, now, ebooks and the Web and powerful search engines, grant us easy access to vast treasuries of knowledge.\u00a0 Cell phones and cheap and instant Internet communications keep us in contact, wherever we are. \u00a0As we hurtle along in climate-controlled automobiles or jet aircraft, we listen, if the mood strikes us, to concerts by U2, or Taylor Swift, or the Berlin Philharmonic.\u00a0 And we lament journeys of several hours that, not so long ago, would have required uncomfortable days if not miserable and dangerous weeks.\u00a0 GPS systems guide us at every step, taking us from driveway to driveway, thousands of miles away.<\/span><\/p>\nOf course, no technical marvel changes life\u2019s fundamentals.\u00a0 We still love family and friends.\u00a0 We still lose them.\u00a0 We become sick and, despite superb healthcare (including antibiotics and surgical procedures unknown to our grandparents), we die.\u00a0 We suffer from the human evils of oppression, crime, cruelty, and war.\u00a0 We endure mental and emotional illnesses, and virtually all of us know someone whose life has been damaged or even ruined by the scourge of drugs.<\/span><\/p>\nSo, more than for anything else, we who\u2019ve been privileged to learn of the Gospel of Christ should be thankful for his atonement and resurrection, which can mend all broken things and make all good things eternal.\u00a0 The power is not ours, but his.\u00a0 I close with powerful words from two hymns, the first from Rudyard Kipling and the second a Latin text derived from Psalm 115:1 and most recently set to memorable music by the great film composer Patrick Doyle:<\/span><\/p>\nGod of our fathers, known of old,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Lord of our far-flung battle-line,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nBeneath whose awful Hand we hold<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Dominion over palm and pine\u2014<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nLord God of Hosts, be with us yet,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nLest we forget\u2014lest we forget!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nThe tumult and the shouting dies;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Captains and the Kings depart:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nStill stands Thine ancient sacrifice,<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0An humble and a contrite heart.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nLord God of Hosts, be with us yet,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nLest we forget\u2014lest we forget!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nFar-called, our navies melt away;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0On dune and headland sinks the fire:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nLo, all our pomp of yesterday<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nJudge of the Nations, spare us yet,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nLest we forget\u2014lest we forget!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\u201cNon nobis, Domine, non nobis,\u2028 sed nomini tuo da gloriam.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cNot unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to thy name give the glory.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nThanks be to God.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Posted from Newport Beach, California<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 I published this 2015 Thanksgiving column in the Deseret News: \u00a0 Although American Thanksgiving Day began as a harvest festival, it\u2019s not about eating.\u00a0 Most of us eat quite well\u2014often too well\u2014every day, so meals aren\u2019t special.\u00a0 It\u2019s not even really about family.\u00a0 As its name implies, it\u2019s about giving thanks. And we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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