Mountain Views News          Saturday, November 21, 2015

15

OPINION

 Mountain Views News Saturday, November 21, 2015 


OUT TO PASTOR 

A Weekly Religion Column by Rev. James Snyder

To Benn: 

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TOO MUCH TURKEY AND 

NOT ENOUGH GRAVY


This time of the year, my thoughts drift back to 
memories of my maternal grandmother. The 
Thanksgiving season brought all her special talents 
to the forefront. To me, my grandmother reigned as 
queen of the kitchen and functioned as the World’s 
Greatest Cook.

 Thanksgiving brought all my relatives to my 
grandmother’s house. My grandfather lived there 
too, but with all the food on the table, nobody 
noticed.

 To be honest, my grandmother did not do 
everything. My grandfather made a major 
contribution to the Thanksgiving preparation. 
In fact, he had the most important part — he 
stayed out of grandmother’s kitchen. I have 
always appreciated that quality of my grandfather. 
As November made its debut, everyone in 
my family eagerly awaited Thanksgiving Day. 
We talked of nothing else for weeks in advance. 
Someone might think all this excitement about 
Grandmother’s Thanksgiving spread a little 
extreme. That is simply because they never had any 
of her “vittles.” One bite, or even one good whiff, 
could convince anyone that my grandmother’s 
cooking ranked number one.

 There were times when circumstances severely 
challenged Grandmother’s patience, if not her 
sanity. But no matter what happened, she always 
came through with fried goodies. No matter what 
the crisis, somehow my grandmother had the 
perfect recipe.

 One year, contrary to her usual good sense, my 
grandmother allowed my grandfather to watch 
the turkey while she went down the road for an 
important meeting at the church. As an active 
member of her church, Grandmother felt an 
obligation to do her part. “If everybody did their 
part,” she explained to me once, “everything would 
get done.”

 Although not completely comfortable leaving 
the important turkey under Grandfather’s watchful 
eye, Grandmother felt she had no other option.

 “Jim,” she said to my grandfather, “I want you to 
pay attention to every word I say.”

 My grandfather was a great old man. I always 
enjoyed the many romps I had with him. He seemed 
to know exactly what children liked to do. Despite 
Grandmother’s warnings, he somehow managed 
to sneak in a little fun for his grandchildren. 
For example, there was the time he let all the 
grandchildren slide down grandmother’s banister.

 But trusting my grandfather with something 
as important as the Thanksgiving turkey was just 
asking too much.

 “Jim,” grandmother instructed, “all you have 
to do is make sure the turkey doesn’t go dry. 
Just baste the turkey every 15 minutes with this 
turkey baster and make sure it doesn’t go dry,” my 
grandfather’s life’s partner explained. To make sure 
my grandfather understood the importance of her 
instructions, Grandmother added one last note. “If 
this turkey goes dry, your goose is cooked.”

 We all knew Grandmother was not joking. She 
never joked about her cooking. Martha Stewart 
could learn a thing or two about culinary etiquette 
from my grandmother.

 To be brutally honest about the whole incident, it 
was not my grandfather’s fault that the meeting at 
the church lasted as long as it did. Everyone knows 
church committee meetings sometimes have a life 
of their own and can go on for days.

 During the first hour of his vigil, my grandfather 
did everything my grandmother instructed him 
to do. However, it was cold outside and the old-
fashioned wood stove in the room off the kitchen 
spread a warm blanket throughout the house, 
creating a drowsy ambience. Anyone in the same 
situation would have done the same thing my 
grandfather did.

 He fell asleep.

 Grandmother’s Thanksgiving turkey not only 
went dry, it shriveled to a dark black lump.

 The excited voice of my grandmother shrieking 
aroused my grandfather from his slumber. “Oh, 
Jim, the turkey, the turkey!” Although groggy, 
Grandfather knew his goose was cooked — and 
nobody cooked goose like my grandmother.

 How well I remember that Thanksgiving. 
Although a smaller turkey than usual, my 
grandmother had more than enough gravy to go 
around. One strange thing about that Thanksgiving 
that has lingered in my mind all these years was that 
my grandfather did not eat any turkey.

When the turkey plate came his way, he quickly 
glanced at my grandmother and said with a familiar 
laugh, “Oh, I couldn’t eat another bite.” Then he 
passed the plate.

 With a chuckle in his voice, he said something I 
did not quite understand at the time.

 “Some folks make too much fuss over 
the turkey and not enough on the gravy.” 
Turning to my grandmother, he continued. 
“Mary, this has to be the best gravy you’ve ever 
made.” My grandmother smiled one of her maternal 
smiles and everyone went back to the business of 
the day.

 I learned that day that there is a danger in making 
too much of the turkey and not enough of the gravy 
in life.

 The Bible puts it this way; “For ye see your 
calling, brethren, how that not many wise men 
after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, 
are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things 
of the world to confound the wise; and God hath 
chosen the weak things of the world to confound 
the things which are mighty; And base things of 
the world, and things which are despised, hath God 
chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to 
naught things that are: That no flesh should glory in 
his presence.” (1 Corinthians 1:26-29 KJV.)

 Like gravy, many things we overlook and 
consider insignificant God uses for His glory.

 

 The Rev. James L. Snyder is pastor of the Family of 
God Fellowship, PO Box 831313, Ocala, FL 34483. He 
lives with his wife, Martha, in Silver Springs Shores. 
Call him at 352-687-4240 or e-mail jamessnyder2@
att.net. The church website is www.whatafellowship.
com.


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LEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN 

MICHAEL Reagan Making Sense

HOWARD Hays As I See It


WINNERS, LOSERS AND 
LEADERS

President Obama’s reaction to the horrible terrorist 
attacks in Paris has been strange — and disturbing.

 Instead of rallying the country and calling for the 
United States to lead the fight to wipe out the Islamic 
State, what did he do first?

 He took pot shots at Republicans for their 
reluctance to open our borders to thousands of Syrian 
refugees.

 He even said some Republicans were helping ISIS recruit new fighters by 
suggesting that the United States should give preference to Christian refugees 
over Muslims.

 We’re stuck with Obama and his failed leadership for another 13 months.

Meanwhile, we’ll have to hope that Francois Hollande of France and Vladimir 
Putin of Russia can lead a coalition to victory over the Islamist extremists.

 Unlike Obama, President Hollande reacted to the Paris attack like a real 
leader.

 He immediately called it what it was – an act of war perpetrated by 
terrorists – and he promised the whole world that his government would not 
let ISIS get away with it.

 “I want to say we are going to lead a war which will be pitiless,” Hollande 
said as he toured the music hall where more than 100 of his countrymen and 
women were slaughtered.

 “Because when terrorists are capable of committing such atrocities they 
must be certain that they are facing a determined France, a united France, 
a France that is together and does not let itself be moved, even if today we 
express infinite sorrow.”

 Obama did not seek to unite America after Paris. He sought to divide it.

He didn’t promise to make the Islamic State pay for Paris or any of its earlier 
atrocities and war crimes.

 The mass murders in Paris and the blowing up of a Russian airliner finally 
woke up Hollande and Putin to the threat posed by ISIS.

 What will it take to wake up Obama?

 His policy towards ISIS reminds me of détente, the foreign policy practiced 
by Republicans and Democrats alike during the Cold War.

 Détente is the French word to describe the easing of tensions and hostilities 
between the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union.

 What the policy of détente meant in practice, however, was not exactly 
something to be proud of if you were a freedom-loving American.

 It basically said to the Soviets – and other totalitarian countries – that we 
don’t care if you torture or imprison or mistreat your own people as long as 
you don’t do anything to harm us.

 Détente with the Evil Empire was OK with both parties and it would have 
continued for God-knows how long except that my father came along in 
1980.

 Shortly after his inauguration, when he was asked what his foreign policy 
was vis-à-vis the Soviets, he shocked everyone in Washington.

 “We win. They lose,” he said. That was his “radical” position from Day 1 
and he stuck to it.

 He didn’t say how he was going to achieve victory over Communism or 
how long it would take, but eight years later the Berlin Wall came down.

President Obama has been practicing a form of détente with ISIS.

 As long as you are only slaughtering and enslaving people over in Syria 
and Iraq, he seems to have been saying, we’ll just bomb you here and there 
but we won’t try to destroy you.

 Well, ISIS is no longer just “over there.” It’s in Paris and Lebanon and 
Egypt and it’s certain to be coming soon to our backyards.

 Obama says what he is doing is the right way to defeat ISIS, but that it’ll 
take a long time.

 He says we Americans have to stay the course, yet he is unwilling to change 
his failed course and assume leadership in the fight against terrorism.

 Once he does that, his foreign policy should be real simple. “We win. They 
lose.”

——-

Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan, a political consultant, 
and the author of “The New Reagan Revolution” (St. Martin’s Press). He is the 
founder of the email service reagan.com and president of The Reagan Legacy 
Foundation. Visit his websites at www.reagan.com and www.michaelereagan.
com.

“Whoever kills an innocent 
person, it is as though he 
has killed all of mankind.”

- Quran 5:32

It’s time to choose sides 
– and sometimes, that 
can be tough. Take, for 
instance, a list of players 
including Vladimir Putin, 
Hezbollah, the mullahs 
of Iran and Syria’s Bashar 
al-Assad. They belong on a 
list of the world’s bad guys. They are also actively 
engaged in the fight against the Islamic State.

 

 France was among nations punishing Russia 
for its incursions in the Ukraine. But now, after 
the October 31 downing of a Russian airliner 
over the Sinai, killing all 224 aboard, and the 
massacres in Paris two weeks later, leaving 129 
dead (coming after a half-dozen other strikes 
over the past two months, from Beirut to the 
Sinai to Yemen to Tripoli, with nearly a hundred 
additional deaths), the two countries are joined 
in military actions against ISIS targets in Syria. 

 In Vienna at a conference on Syria last week, 
the U.S., Russia and regional adversaries like 
Saudi Arabia and Iran were among some twenty 
nations taking the side of solidarity against ISIS. 
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani labeled the 
Paris attacks a “crime against humanity”. 

Also choosing sides have been Muslim leaders 
and organizations throughout the world, both 
Shiite and Sunni, overwhelmingly condemning 
terrorism, the Paris attacks, and loudly protesting 
that Islamic State has nothing to do with Islam. 
A blogger out of Libya tweeted, “If you think 
Muslims aren’t condemning ISIS, it’s not because 
Muslims aren’t condemning ISIS. It’s because 
you’re not listening to Muslims.”

 As for the U.S., a few hours before the Paris 
attacks President Obama explained on “Good 
Morning America”, “from the start our goal has 
been first to contain and we have contained them. 
They have not gained ground in Iraq and in Syria 
they’ll come in, they’ll leave. But you don’t see 
this systemic march by ISIL across the terrain.”

Soon after the Paris attacks, U.S. airstrikes were 
taking out ISIS leaders in Libya. The day before, 
U.S. air support helped Kurdish forces retake the 
Iraqi city of Sinjar – and the roads which were 
important ISIS supply lines. In Syria, a U.S. drone 
strike took out ISIS executioner “Jihadi John.” 
Two days after the Paris attacks, we destroyed 116 
fuel trucks used by ISIS in Syria.

 With setbacks on the battlefield, ISIS has 
become more dependent on attracting new 
recruits; both in the Middle East and from 
abroad. One way is to inhibit the emigration of 
refugees to western countries. The more hopeless 
they become in crowded camps in Jordan, 
Lebanon, Egypt or Turkey, the more susceptible 
they become to radicalization. Another is 
to encourage a backlash against Muslims 
established abroad, to show that Western 
promises of inclusive democracy will never apply 
to them; that their place is within the refuge of 
the Caliphate. And they’ll frame the conflict as 
an apocalyptic “clash of civilizations” between 
Islam and the Crusaders.

 In trying to clarify which side they themselves 
are on, Republicans have echoed ISIS propaganda 
by seeking to inhibit immigration of refugees, 
encouraging a backlash against Muslims living 
here and framing the conflict as that apocalyptic 
“clash of civilizations”.

 Europeans soon determined that the Syrian 
passport found with one of the suicide bombers 
was a plant. So far, all attackers have been 
identified as being European nationals, with 
the passport intended to cast blame instead on 
Syrian refugees. But Republicans fell for it. Or 
maybe they didn’t - maybe, as President Obama 
suggested, they’ve just been “playing on fear in 
order to try to score political points or to advance 
their campaigns.”

 Republican governors either fell for it or 
are themselves “playing on fear in order to try 
to score political points” by refusing to admit 
Syrian refugees to their states. If they knew 
about refugees, they’d know that of the 748,000 
admitted since 9/11/01, exactly three have been 
charged with plotting terrorist acts – and none 
of those were planned for the U.S. (two were 
for conspiring to send weapons to Iraq, and 
the third involved guns for Uzbekistan). If they 
knew about the process, they’d know of the 18 
months to three years of vetting by the State 
Department, FBI, Homeland Security and U.N. 
before they’re allowed to cross the ocean. If they 
knew about the law, they’d know they have no 
say over this immigration, anyway.

 Republicans in Congress have called for 
increased surveillance on Muslim Americans. 
Donald Trump suggested shutting down 
mosques entirely, although he’d “hate to do it”.

 As for the apocalypse, Jeb Bush warned that 
“The terror attack in Paris is part of an organized 
effort to destroy Western Civilization”. Sen. 
Marco Rubio (R-FL) parroted the ISIS line 
by characterizing the conflict as a “clash of 
civilizations”. After taping his remarks, he then 
skipped a Foreign Relations Committee classified 
security briefing on the Paris attacks to attend a 
fundraiser in Newport Beach. (Following the 
Paris massacres, French President Hollande 
pointed out that those involved could not be 
considered any part of any kind of “civilization”.)

 Both Bush and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) 
suggested some religious test for refugees; that 
only Christians need apply. President Obama 
described such a notion as “offensive and 
contrary to American values”; “We don’t have 
religious tests to our compassion.”

Perhaps mindful of our xenophobic refusal to 
accept boatloads of Jewish refugees escaping Nazi 
Germany in 1938 and 1939, or the internment 
of Japanese-Americans because of racism-
stoked fear, President Obama called Republican 
statements and actions “irresponsible. And it’s 
contrary to who we are. And it needs to stop, 
because the world is watching.”

 Ahmed al-Tayyeb, head of Cairo’s Al-Azhar, 
Sunni Islam’s leading seat of learning, reacted to 
the Paris massacres on Egyptian TV; “The time 
has come for the world to unite to confront this 
monster.”

 Then there was the Republican reaction, of 
which President Obama said, “I cannot think of a 
more potent recruitment tool for ISIL”.

It’s time to choose sides.


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