Let’s be thankful this Thanksgiving. I realize some will say, “well, I don’t have all that much to be thankful for, do I?” But that would be pessimistic wouldn’t it? I remember a time in 1954 when a relative was celebrating the birth of his fi rst child. He said, “This is a heck of a time to be bringing a new baby into the world, isn’t it?” I asked him why he felt that way and he replied, “The world was in the worse mess it had ever been in. I don’t see much of a future for my son being born into such a messed-up world.” He was a pessimist.

Fast forward to a later time. 1963. It was the date that President John F. Kennedy was being paraded down a Dallas street past the Dallas Book Depository when shots rang out. Two of the high-powered rifle shots found their mark and our president’s life was snuffed out. I was working at the Bayless Drug Store in Ada that morning and a small radio behind me was covering the motorcade. Confusion broke out but we soon learned that the assassin was successful. Kennedy was dead.

Had Kennedy not been shot that morning he would have traveled down to Austin, Texas later that day and made a speech there. He never got to make it. But here is a little bit of what he would have said had he managed to live through that day in Dallas. It was written down.

“In today’s world freedom can be lost without a shot being fired, by ballots as well as bullets.” Two of the three shots fired by Lee Harvey Oswald killed the youngest President ever elected 56 years ago this week. I suppose it is safe to say that the only thing that unites Americans this Thanksgiving is how divided we are. And as I think back over those many years since Kennedy lay bleeding in a Presidential limo on a backstreet in Dallas, I still am amazed at how much change, discord and division in our nation has eroded and gnawed at the strength of America, by one halfwit gunman. Since Oswald had recently visited both Russia and then Cuba, both arch enemies of the U.S., tensions between these countries and America rose.

But we got over that, mostly with the passage of time. Or did we? The Vietnam War flared into a major and deadly war for all of us under our new leader, LBJ. It further divided our country. A division that has persisted to this day. A time of suspicion grew between Americans. The rise of the term “Left” and “Right” became a more descriptive term in our land than Republican and Democrat. Cell phones and TV watching has dramatically changed our culture. We give little thought to our needs to be in church on a regular basis and for sure we can’t make it to Sunday Night Church services and miss our TV programs.

We dismiss corruption in many areas of our government with a wave of hand. We say, “Oh, they’re all crooked” but we go ahead and let them serve as long as they keep our own favorite programs spinning and are permissive of “socialism” in most segments of our government. But let’s remember something significant about Thanksgiving this year. We are still free to go to the church of our choice, believe as we see fi t and able to differ with those who govern us. We can still get in our cars and drive anywhere we wish. Even across State lines and don’t have to get a permit. Basically, we don’t need “papers” or passports to travel around our country. We still have the freedom of speech. Article two in the constitution our forefathers wrote still gives us the freedom to bear arms.

Disagreements and difference in our politics may be putting a little sand in our gears, but those gears still work, and I give thanks to God for that. I hope that all of you remember to thank God for these blessings and no better place to do that than in Church Sunday. Be sure and go—and take your family with you.

Wayne Bullard, DPh

waynebullard@sbcglobal.net