I Didn't Make It Happen--Not That There's Anything Wrong With That!

Thank the for the world so sweet,

Thank the for the food we eat,

Thank the for the birds that sing,

Thank the, God, for everything.

I wasn't very old when I learned this little verse. My parents raised us to be good Christian children--they were converts to the religion we were raised in when I was about six or seven, but there is a Thanksgiving photograph of my brother, me, and Mom, taken by my Dad, of us with our hands folded, ready to say grace. It was part of every meal, and we were told--kids get told the darnedest things!--that if we didn't say the blessing, we'd get tummy aches! We did say grace, and evening prayers, too. And even though our folks worked hard, we thanked Someone Else--God--for what we had.

Fast forward to the next step. How often does one win an award? Well, maybe not personally, but have you ever gotten a compliment on something you received as a gift? "Oh, thank you, So-and-so gave it to me for my birthday" you may have said. Or how about the athlete who was the major scorer? Did he or she not thank the coach, the team, the parents who sacrificed so he or she could get to practice, have time to play on the team, the siblings who did their chores, maybe? And many an entertainer has thanked so many others who worked behind the scenes in the play, musical, or movie they won the award for starring in. But did they not do the lion's share of the work? Yes...but not alone. 

Okay, you say these are team efforts. Maybe. But without the name or talent of the major player, would the game be won or the show be a hit? Who would have come to watch? And how would they get there, if no one had bothered to put together a method of transporting people, or of getting the main event together in such a way that it would be the entertainment so many would be able to enjoy? 

One more. It's dinnertime. What are you having, and where did it come from? How did you cook it? Did you build a fire, cook something you grew in your garden or raised on your farm, and serve it on a table you built from the tree you cut down? Or not? Didn't think so. But the factory that built your appliances got the goods from somewhere, and they came by truck over a road that was built and maintained by public works departments along the way, and the food was brought to you courtesy of truckers as well. Oh, and guess what? Those trucks are also built and maintained by parts which are built and transported as well in other factories. 

We're interdependent on one another, and on different parts of our government, at different times. During that sports championship, someone was the teacher, and the coach. Chances are, it was a public school, and somewhere, a parent, teacher, student, went to other public schools as well. And had someone in one of these examples been injured, there would have been an ambulance called, had a fire happened, the fire department would be summoned. 

These are all part of who stands behind every one of us. Many of us, who are religious, call upon God, as we understand Him, to give thanks for our blessings. But we must also acknowledge that we weren't born reading, writing, and doing math, figuring things out on our own. We had to learn these things, and we learned them from parents--who went to primarily publicly-funded schools, and who pay taxes so we can go where we need to be on publicly-funded roads. We have schoolteachers--some who stand out as the memory-makers, and changed our way of thinking in critical, important ways. Public schoolteachers, yes, I still remember some of mine. 

We don't do it alone. If we did, each of us would most likely keep reinventing a good deal of what someone else already has done, but had been good enough to leave behind as a public legacy to the rest of us. Speaking for myself, I'm thankful for the legacy.