My concern about the Thanksgiving holiday is that we confuse thanksgiving with warm fuzzy feelings about serendipitous circumstances. Thanksgiving is not simply being happy that we have a warm house on a cold day and that we got the turkey for only $.49 a pound at Meijer. It’s not just the relief we feel when the Republicans and Democrats in the family don’t have a knock-down, drag-out brawl over the pumpkin pie. Being pleased by a pleasant situation is not thanksgiving. Simple cheerfulness is not thankfulness. True thankfulness is directed in praise to God, speech that reverently acknowledges and approves his goodness and faithfulness.
Archives for November 2025
Gales of November: The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald 50 Years Later
I never tire of listening to Gordon Lightfoot’s song The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. I’m hooked from the first strum of the Asus2 chord to the ninth time the haunting guitar riff is played as the song fades out. The lyrics contain striking lines like this metaphor: that big ship and true was a bone to be chewed when the gales of November came early. But for me as a believer in Jesus and a student of the Bible, the most significant part of the song is the question Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours? In this post I explore how the wind destroyed the Fizgerald, as well as how the Bible speaks of wind and storms as a challenge to faith in God.