My Italian mother taught me to say thank you. When I was a kid, if I forgot to thank someone, she would scold me. “What’s the matter with you? Our family is going to think I didn’t teach you good manners.” Then faster than a serpent’s strike she landed an open-handed right hook to my head. “Next time don’t forget.” I painfully caught the punch line that when someone bestows a gift upon you, don’t fail to give thanks in return. But there is one group of people that always fails at giving thanks, which is the subject of this blog.
Even as a grown man, Mom would call me on the telephone, before the days of cell phones, to monitor my gratitude meter.
“Did you call Uncle Dominic and Aunt Lina to thank them for the birthday card?”
“Yes Mom, I called them yesterday.”
During Christmas holidays she would ring me. “How come you didn’t call to thank me for the fruit cake and Christmas cookies?”
“Mom, I just received them – the mailman literally left seconds ago.”
When on vacation, she phoned my hotel room. “When are you going to send everyone a thank you card?”
“Mom, we’re still in Hawaii on our honeymoon.”
I understand all cultures have their unique way to say thank you. The traditional Italian American did not expect a value-for-value show of gratitude. If you ever visited the home of one of these Americans of Italian descent, invariable they fed you pasta, meat balls, sausage, antipasto, and heavy Italian pastries till they stuffed you to death. They didn’t expect their American friends to return the the favor with an Italian meal but only that you raved over their cooking and occasionally reciprocated with some nice gift. That was their form of thank you. But if you never reciprocated and offended “The family,” fuhgeddaboudit, if you know what I mean. Saying or showing thanks is common among all cultures for maintaining healthy relationships. But soon I’d like to tell you about one group that refuses to give thanks.
I’m not talking about ingratitude due to forgetfulness or busyness, because true friends and family cut you slack for mistakes. But there is no grace offered to this ungrateful people group who show no intention of saying thanks. Not only should we thank our fellow man, but also God for His blessings. Here is just a very short list of some of God’s good gifts that endow us with sensual and emotional pleasure:
- A sunrise or sunset emersed in a sea of yellow, orange, lavender, and red hues.
- Colorful birds flaunting billions of shades of every color. In one Florida pond live snowy white egrets, blue, green, and purple herons, rosy spoonbills, and countless types of ducks. In every area of the globe exists different species of birds with their unique beauty. There is also the royal reigns of osprey, hawks, and eagles that reflect a heavenly majesty.
- Endless wildlife can be seen roaming our globe and can be very exciting. I chuckle at grown adults who get awestruck by spotting an eight-point buck like they just discovered the view from Mount Everest, or panic at a ten-foot alligator like it was King Kong. The list of wildlife on Earth is endless. I have a friend, Dick, whose business is taking people on photography trips on lakes, though forests, and up mountains filled with eagles, tropical birds, monkeys, bears and all types of wildlife. He lives the dream job.
- Colorful landscapes dress our world. In Summer, God accents green meadows with rainbow-hued flora. In Autumn, God’s palette overflows drenching His mountain canvas with colorful splendor.
- Harvest moons, shooting stars, and billions of galaxies, leave us in awe of The Lord’s expansive and celestial majesty.
- But all these beautiful creations bow down to the lord of all earthly pleasures which is the smile of a child or grandchild accented with the words “mommy,” “daddy,” “mimi,” or “papa.”
Its hard to imagine that God is both friend and family and overloads us with pleasures beyond the greatest human feast. The Bible quotes Jesus as saying “I have called you my friends.” And God Almighty refers to Himself as our Heavenly Father. And with the concern of a mother, He teaches us the importance of giving thanks by repeating that theme in the Bible over five hundred times. How is our thanksgiving meter this Christmas season?
Most of us, I suspect, do thank God in some small way by saying grace, whispering a thank you, or sneaking in a bedtime prayer, but there is always room for us to demonstrate more appreciation. But what’s annoying is to think there is one group who enjoy the above list of blessings but refuse to give thanks to the one who made it all possible. How can that be? Who is this group?
The group calls themselves Atheists who refuse to give thanks because they don’t believe in God. Some become quite militant if you even mention God, the Bible, or, heaven help us, “Jesus.” They get more aggressive than the bully who beat up Lou Costello for saying Niagara Falls. (Goggle “Abbott and Costello Niagara falls” to watch the YouTube of this skit).
I imagine God in His grace gave an atheist an opportunity to meet him in heaven for a temporary visit. I would love to be a fly on the wall of that meeting. Imagine God sitting in a throne chair surrounded by clouds and angels but in a friendly setting. He motioned to the atheist to take a seat facing him. God shuffled through a few papers. “Hmm … atheist” He peeked over his glasses. “So, tell me why you don’t believe in me. I like to give you an opportunity to present a logical answer.”
The atheist slid both palms up and down on his thighs and took a deep breath. “Well, I was taught in high school about evolution and how everything just evolved on its own.”
God placed his head in his hand. “You believe the teaching that this world happened by chance.”
The atheist looked away with pursed lips, and turned back and stared God in the eye. “Yes God, sir, I believe, statistically, that given enough years anything could build itself.”
God took off His glasses. “I see you think the earth and sea creatures and humans created themselves.”
“Yes sir, it’s a statistical possibility.”
“But did you think that makes any sense? That’s like saying a tornado could create a Boeing 747 by accident, if it passed over a junk yard every day for a billion years.”
The atheist scratched his head. “Well, when you put it that way …”
God leaned forward. “I hear you are a New York Times best-selling author, many times over.”
“Yes sir.”
God grabbed a book from his side-table. “To believe life happens by accident is to believe that If I placed the 2.5 million alphabetic characters and punctuations that make up this novel I hold, ‘Gone With The Wind,’ put them in a jar, shook them up, and emptied them on the ground every day for a billion years, eventually they would magically arrange themselves into chapters, paragraphs, sentences, a preface, a copywrite, and an index that make up ‘Gone With The Wind.’ Magically the story lines, characters, character arcs, and dialog that authors, like you, painstakingly design, could happen by chance or accident.
The atheist bit his nails while lifted his eyes. “Well, I guess it would be very unlikely. It makes more sense someone designed and created it.”
God replaced his glasses and looked solemnly at the Atheist. “I am that designer and creator. Do you have anything else to say?
With a questioning tone, “Uhh … thank you?”
At this point God took serious action, and summoned His secretary of reciprocation – my Italian mother – to stand by His side and interrogate the atheist. Quicker than a ninja turtle, she landed a sharp slap to his head. “What’s the matter didn’t your mother teach you any manners?
The atheist covered his head expecting another blow.
Mom gave the Italian hand gesture for “what’s-the-matter-for you.“
The atheist trembled in his chair. “I’m sorry, maam.”
Mom pointed at the atheist. “The next time God gives you a gift, you won’t forget to say thanks.”
Suddenly the atheist disappeared back to earth, and we can only hope he became a believer.
One of the greatest gifts God gave to mankind was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah:
“For to us a child is born and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins”
Therefore, this Christmas, let us be sure to say thank you.
Non-Fiction and Fiction 
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