Memories of Snow

NaNoWriMo Day 23: Thanksgiving Wednesday (WC:1760)

‘Idál (Justice), 2 Qawl (Speech), 173 BE - Tuesday, November 22, 2016 AD about 7:53 PM Pacific Standard Time

The prompts from Blog City and the Blogging circle of friends inspired me to begin writing my Thanksgiving Wednesday entry on Tuesday night. Sometimes the prompts inspire me to get started responding to them early even though I can't post them to the blog forums until after 9:00 PM PST.

Thanksgiving Wednesday:
Blogging Circle of Friends Day 1469 Prompt -
What ten things are on your 2016 Gratitude list?

Dear 2016,

I want to thank you for a year of spiritual growth. The test and difficult I have face this year has strengthened my faith and my soul's ability to turn to God in times of trouble. These test and difficulties have confirmed that the prayers revealed by The Bab and Baha'u'llah are endowed with the power of the Holy Spirit.

I want to thank you for the memories that you have given me. Some of these memories that will stay with for eternity. While others will be forgotten when they are replaced by new experiences I expect to come in 2017.

I want to thank you for the new friends and acquaintances that I have discovered in my own neighborhood. Some of these people I will remain in my memory album forever because their interesting lives have crossed mine for a brief time. While others will remain my friends until the day I die.

I want to thank you for the dogs that have spent a brief time in my life. Dogs that let me pet them or sniffed at my feet as I walked through the neighborhood.

I want to thank you for the weird noises I hear on summer nights echoing through my open kitchen window. Noises that will end up in poems and stories I write in the coming months.

I want to thank you for the beautiful multicolored dawns that grace Las Vegas and inspire me to rise in the first light of day.

I want to thank you for the supermoons that have inspired poems while making me smile as I watched them rise over Sunrise Mountain or Frenchman's Mountain (I've never been able to figure out the difference in those to eastern peaks).

I want to thank you for the beautiful spring and autumn clouds that remind me of the season's of my childhood in Oklahoma.

I want to thank your for summer's triple digit temperatures that make me thankful for air conditioning while looking forward to a chilly Las Vegas winter.

I want to thank you for a year of excitement and trepidation because my life would be boring and motionless without a little bit of apprehension to push me into action.

With warm Gratitude,
N. F. Darbe AKA Prosperous Snow

Thanksgiving Wednesday:
Blog City Day 988 Prompt -
What was your best Thanksgiving? What was your worst Thanksgiving?

What was my best Thanksgiving? There wasn't just a single Thanksgiving that was my best. My best Thanksgivings occurred when I was a child in Blackwell, Oklahoma. Those were the Thanksgiving Days I spent at my Grandparents' house in the Smelter Heights. While it's true that there were many times in my childhood that were not pleasant none of those occurred at Grandpa and Grandma's house. I loved spending holidays there because I knew that Grandma would be cooking in preparation for the big holiday meal.

Helping Grandma prepare for a meal was fun. True many times the only thing that my sister or I did was wash the dishes while Grandma prepared the food. It was still fun because I spent those days with my grandparents. During the week of Thanksgiving the house smelled delicious because Grandma was baking pies for the big Thanksgiving feast.

On Thanksgiving we all gathered around the dining room table. Grandpa would say the blessing, he could say a prayer of Gratitude without any preparation. I knew by the way he said the prayer that he believed in God. Grandpa wasn't a man to flaunt his faith in front of people, but you knew by the simple and direct prayers that he said that he had a deep faith.

On the Friday after Thanksgiving, Grandpa would get us into his car. Once everyone was in the car he would drive into the center of town where we would pick out a living Christmas tree. My grandparents never put up a tree until after Thanksgiving. They never decorated the inside of the house until after Thanksgiving and they never decorated the outside at all.

What was my worst Thanksgiving? There are two Thanksgivings that via for my worst Thanksgiving. The first is the last Thanksgiving I cooked a whole turkey. I'm not precisely sure what year it was, but I know it was either 2008 or 2009. We didn't have a working oven, but we received a free turkey from one of the food pantries. They ask if we had cooking facilities without asking what kind of cooking facilities we had. What we had was a stove top with two burner working and a microwave.

Anyway we received a fifteen or twenty pound turkey, which was too big to put whole in our microwave. Instead of calling friends or family to ask if they could cook the turkey for us, I decided that the best way to approach the situation was to cut the turkey up and cook it piece by piece in the microwave. I cut the cold recently defrosted bird up. By the time I finished carving the raw turkey my hands were almost frozen or at least the felt like they were. After carving the bird, I proceeded to cook it in the microwave. I'm not sure how long it took me to cook that turkey, but it was a long time.

The second worst Thanksgiving was the year my mother died. I fixed stove top stuffing with turkey gravy (purchased in a jar) we didn't have a turkey or any type of meat. For dessert we had a Marie Calendar's pumpkin pie. Mama ate some of the stuffing with gravy and one slice of pie with Cool Whip. Mom died one week later on November 29, 2012.

‘Idál (Justice), 2 Qawl (Speech), 173 BE - Wednesday, November 23, 2016 AD about 9:30 AM Pacific Standard Time

Thanksgiving Wednesday:
The Power of God

"Say, the power of God is in the hearts of those who believe in the unity of God and bear witness that no God is there but Him, while the hearts of them that associate partners with God are impotent, devoid of life on this earth, for assuredly they are dead."

The Bab, Selections from the Writings of the Báb,1

I never did find the scripture I mentioned earlier in this entry. I will eventually find it, but I'm not going to worry about it now. This morning another scripture is running through my mind. This one was revealed by The Bab, the forerunner of Baha'u'llah, and is found in Selections from the Writing of the Bab. The scripture is about the power of God and it's location in the hearts or souls of those who believe in God's unity.

For some reason this quote seems especially important to me this morning. Maybe it's because of all the disunity after the November 8 general election. Watching all that's going on now and remember all that went on before November 8, I realize that the biggest problems America has is disunity and belief in the unity of God. It appears that America is sliding into the fire of hell, but I know this is only a passage through the hell of hate and that eventually the country will come out of it and walk in the light of unity.

I hope to live long enough to see the American people comprehend the power of faith that is generated through belief in God's unity. God is the creator of the universe and the revealer of religions. We are living in apocalyptic times and the only thing that will unite us and save of is the power of God which in this age is reveal though The Bab and Baha'u'llah.

I cry for my country, but I realize that tears will do no good. The only thing that will help us through this time of despair and trepidation is the power of God. The only thing I can do is pray for my country and spread the good news of Baha'u'llah. I don't think I've been doing a good job of this up to now. I know that I haven't been relying upon God and Baha'u'llah the way I should because I've been withdrawing into my fantasy world when confronted by certain issues that I don't want to face. I can change this. I don't have to wait any longer to change the way I do and think. I know it won't be easy. However, I have the help of God and Baha'u'llah so it isn't impossible for me to change.

About 12:07 PM Pacific Standard Time

Thanksgiving Wednesday:
Thanksgiving Eve Activities

On Thanksgiving Eve
Grandma baked her pumpkin pies.
We always found an excuse
To go into the kitchen
To see how many pies
Grandma was baking.
The aroma of pumpkin spice
And apples
Wafted throughout the house.
Grandma's apple pies
Had strips of dough on the top
Which made the pie taste good
With vanilla ice cream.
On Thanksgiving day
She whipped the cream
For the pumpkin pies.

I always loved to sit at the kitchen or dining room table and inhale the aroma of Grandma's kitchen. It usually meant that Grandma Mary would put me to work doing something like washing and drying dishes while she finished her Thanksgiving baking. That was all right because I knew she would let me lick the mixing dish. I still love the taste of pumpkin scrapped from the sides of a mixing dish.

I don't remember Grandma using raw pumpkins for her pies. When she and Grandpa went to the store on the Friday or Saturday before Thanksgiving they always purchased canned pumpkin for the pies. I know that when Grandma was younger she must have used raw pumpkin removed from the center of a Jacd-o-lantern. However, as Grandma got older she purchased things in the store that would help with the cooking. The only thing I don't remember Grandma ever using was already made dough for her pies, she always made her own dough for her pie crust.

Footnotes
1  http://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/the-bab/selections-writings-bab...