Welcome to Tuesday! It is the Tuesday before one of the best days of the year!!! The only way today could be better is if it WERE Thanksgiving! But alas, Thursday has that one all sewn up. You can read about that more in today's Notes which were originally brought to you free of charge via email on November 22, 2011. My how the time goes by. So here, with an assist from one of the greatest bands in all of musicdom, is the reimagination of Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Thank You" Happy Thanksgiving!!!!
I hope you were taught the story of the Pilgrims. They endured many setbacks in their attempt to have religious freedom by coming to the New World. It was only through God's providence and some help from local natives that they survived. Their observance of thanks is the example that we use for the celebration in which we partake at this time of the year.
I hope you were taught the story of the Pilgrims. They endured many setbacks in their attempt to have religious freedom by coming to the New World. It was only through God's providence and some help from local natives that they survived. Their observance of thanks is the example that we use for the celebration in which we partake at this time of the year.
We remember the landing at Plymouth and the Indians. We try to visualize the first meal and the praise that was lifted up by these weary travelers. But it wasn't until the United States was in the middle of it's greatest conflict that we recognized the need to be grateful as a nation.
243 years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth and after having viewed the battlefield at Gettysburg, President Lincoln realized the depravity of man and committed his life to Christ.
243 years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth and after having viewed the battlefield at Gettysburg, President Lincoln realized the depravity of man and committed his life to Christ.
He delivered his famous Gettysburg address 155 years ago this past Sunday.
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863
November 19, 1863
One of his first proclamations as a believer was to make Thanksgiving an official federal holiday in 1863. Please take a moment and read the Thanksgiving Proclamation here:
by the President of the United States of America
The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful years and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the Source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.
In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.
Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the field of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than theretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.
No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.
In testimony wherof I have herunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
A. Lincoln
Oh, that Presidents and politicians would speak and write that way today...they have forgotten that poetry communicates effectively. It certainly did for one band 1969.
If the sun refused to shine, I would still be loving you.
when mountains crumble to the sea, there would still be you and me.
Kind woman, I give you my all, Kind woman, nothing more.
Little drops of rain whisper of the pain, tears of loves lost in the days gone by.
Our love is strong, with you there is no wrong,
together we shall go until we die. My, my, my.
Inspiration's what you are to me, inspiration, look... see.
And so today, my world it smiles, your hand in mine, we walk the miles,
Thanks to you it will be done, for you to me are the only one.
Happiness, no more be sad, happiness....I'm glad.
If the sun refused to shine, I would still be loving you.
If the mountains should crumble to the sea, there would still be you and me.
The poetic sense of the above lyric sounds as if it may have come from the Song of Solomon. While it does express a "Whole Lotta Love", I think it best we "Ramble On" to the video:
"Thank You" was included on the #1 album, Led Zeppelin II, which was released in 1969, with other hits, "Whole Lotta Love" and "Ramble On". Many attribute the release of Led Zeppelin II as being the beginnings of heavy metal. Yup! The origins of metal featured the combination of a Vox 12 string guitar played by Jimmy Page and a Hammond organ played by John Paul Jones. Some concerts for Led Zeppelin at this time were known to last over 4 hours. Talk about getting your money's worth!
The first Led Zeppelin song written completely by lead singer Robert Plant, "Thank You" never made it to Billboard's Hot 100. It did, however, make it as high as #8 on Billboards' Hot Rock Tracks Chart in 1995 after Duran Duran recorded a version of it for the Zeppelin tribute album, Encomium.
During this season of Thanksgiving, we are often encouraged to reflect and evaluate those things for which we can be grateful. This is a great exercise, and I encourage you to do just that in your times alone with God this week. With each passing year, it seems that I become more grateful. Perhaps this is something you experience as well. I think with the passing of time, we tend to take less and less for granted. However, with this sense of gratitude can come revelations of the ways we overlook the very ones for which we are grateful.
At this point in history, it seems it is easier than ever to stay connected with those people to whom we have a relationship, yet it also seems that those relationships weaken due to the "distractions" that so easily compete for our time. We text instead of truly talk, we skype instead of truly speaking, we email instead of using the letter writing skills that so many of us were taught in school as an art form. Some would say this is progress. Again as I get older, I wonder. What price are we paying for this kind of progress?
Try this exercise as you celebrate Thanksgiving. Ask those who come into your home for the day to surrender their smartphone, smartwatch, tablet or any other electrical device they have on their person, to a box which you will hide until they depart. See what happens. Take the opportunity to invest in each other without the normal distractions that may separate you. You may find you have much more than what you anticipated for which to be thankful.
I am thankful for the relationships that God has given me yet, I use a lack of time and resources as excuses for not cultivating those God-given relationships in which I am blessed to have. Please forgive me. I am grateful that God has allowed me to live as long as I have, yet, I use a tired body and worn out knees as excuses for not obtaining new relationships that the Holy Spirit prompts me to start. Please forgive me. I am appreciative of all of the memories that I have yet, I use life's frustrations and regrets of the past as excuses for not dreaming the big dreams that God has planned for me. Please forgive me. Most of all, I am thankful for you, the people that I count as brothers and sisters in Christ and the fact that time and again, you DO forgive me. For that forgiveness from you and the ultimate forgiveness we have in our Savior Jesus, I can gratefully say "Thank You"!!
“I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ; That in every thing ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge;” I Corinthians 1:4-5 King James Version of The Bible/ English Standard Version of the Bible/ The Message Paraphrase of the Bible parallel
Thanks for reading Tuesday's Musical Notes, as often as you can! Happy Thanksgiving!!!
Serving Him by serving You,
randy
Serving Him by serving You,
randy
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