Category: Holidays & Happenings - trish hermanson

Is America Threatening to Hit Its Expiration Date?

7/2/2020

Is America threatening to hit its expiration date?
     If we follow the pattern of other great nations and empires, our country will reach its expiration date six years from now when it turns two hundred fifty, according to author Cal Thomas.
     Thomas bases his prediction on the research of Sir John Glubb, an English scholar who traces the rise and fall of empires over three thousand years. Glubb concludes that the average time before empires fall from grandeur is two hundred fifty years.
     The United States is in the last stage of empires, the age of decadence, according to Thomas. “Given the history of other empires and great nations, the decadence that now is tightening its grip on America almost guarantees our demise or at the very least a radical decline…,” he says in his book “America’s Expiration Date.”
  Can we stop this downturn? “Possibly,” he says, “though the hour is growing late. But any revival of the American spirit won’t come through politics and politicians.… America’s central problems are not economic and political; they are moral and spiritual. If not addressed on that level, our doom is sure,” he says.
     Then how can we make America great again? Not through government, Thomas warns. Only through individual moral and spiritual responses will our country revive.
  So what is my part in this?

Lincoln Missed the First Juneteenth

6/19/2020

When I visited Denver’s Juneteenth celebration a few years ago to enjoy the hand drumming, I had no clue that the holiday carries significance far beyond honoring African American culture. I learned since then that Juneteenth is a shortened form of June 19, 1865. That was the day, two months after the Civil War had ended, that a Union general entered Texas, the most remote Confederate state, and publicly announced that “all slaves are free.”
     Juneteenth is America’s second independence day. More African Americans were freed through the Civil War than white colonists were freed from the Revolutionary War.
     But let’s be honest, the slaves were only set free-ish. What followed were lynchings and segregation and separate-but-not-equal and the re-emergence of white supremacy. As a country, we’re still reaping the harvest of America’s original sin - racism.
     Abraham Lincoln missed the first Juneteenth. The great emancipator was assassinated two months before. He had proclaimed in his second inaugural address that the Civil War was divine punishment for a national moral debt created by “250 years of unrequited toil.” Since then, I wonder if we have incurred another 155 years of debt, the consequence of our continuing bigotry.
     I’m as white as a fish belly, so I can’t claim to understand the degradation my black friends have endured. But on this Juneteenth, I honor this significant day.
     Because under God, we are all created equal.
***
  Photo: Hernan Pinera, Creative Commons, text added.

Who Ya Gonna Fool on April 1?

3/31/2020

April Fool’s Day is upon us, and even in this serious Age of Coronavirus, I’m on the alert for what might happen. In the past, I’ve found my underwear drawer empty or pine cones in my bed.    That’s nothing compared to a BBC broadcast showing Swiss farmers harvesting fresh-grown spaghetti from trees. People called in asking where they could buy these plants.
     Who can believe anything anymore? Cats playing piano - I believe that. A politician apologizing - I don’t believe that.
      One thing you can believe is that humor is healthy. Gelotology, the study of laughter, has determined that a guffaw is good medicine. So here’s my April Fool’s Day blessing:
     May your pranks be painless, your laughter sublime. Your pleasure sweet, like a soft ringing chime. But thoughts escape me, I’ve run out of rhyme. So I’ll end this here 'cause it ain't worth a dime.

Help George - We're Desperate!

2/17/2020

Do you experience “outrage exhaustion” from politics these days? Sometimes I do. How different our bickering and backbiting are from George Washington’s approach. He was known to honor everyone, according to biographer Mason Locke Weems.
     How did the general and president develop such humility? Some trace it to his schooling as a teen when he hand copied 110 “Rules of Civility & Decent Behaviour.” These axioms, first developed by French Jesuits, are enjoying a surge of popularity today during our fractious times because we desperately need them.
     Some are outdated - “Spit not in the Fire, nor…Set your Feet upon the Fire especially if there be meat before it.” But most are applicable. Ponder these:
     “Be not apt to relate news if you know not the truth thereof.” What a great maxim when considering whether to share a Facebook or Twitter post.
     “Speak not injurious Words neither in Jest nor Earnest.” What a challenge to speak only words that build up and don’t tear down.
     “Always Submit your Judgment to others with Modesty.” Am I willing to express my convictions with humility during this election season?
     Here’s my favorite: “Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.”
     Imagine that this “celestial fire” burned within us again. By George, we’d be as civil as Washington.
     All 110 of Washington’s rules are here. and a song that helps me shut my mouth when I should is here.

The Dark Side of St. Valentine's Day

2/9/2020

Valentine’s Day is one of the saddest times of the year. Why? Because the day is often a reminder of loss - of what once was or what never has been. It’s a crushing day for those who have suffered a romantic relationship loss - and who hasn’t?
     So it’s refreshing to see folks broaden the celebration into Pal-entine’s Day, a time to honor close friends through notes, gifts, and gatherings. We know how much our soul mates have made our lives better. This is a time to let them know.
     Here's my favorite buddy song to sing along with as you think about those special people in your life.
***
Photo from “Guidepost” with text added.