A "blast from the past" (November 2002; an article I wrote for Spring Creek Church's People Matters)

Turkey Talk

Each November I find myself filled with a certain amount of trepidation – all on account of tangling with a turkey. While our family enjoys feasting on that fowl, it can be a bit of a tricky business managing to produce a delicious delicacy rather than a dried-out dud.

So, I went to my trusted friends to seek out their sage advice. How, I queried, do you make a Thanksgiving dinner? Austin said, “First you put a wrapper over it.” (The turkey, I believe he meant.) “You cook it at 30 degrees for an hour; eat it with gravy, vegetables and cauliflower.” After consultation with Bob, however, Austin felt the oven temperature he advised was a little low. “Change it to 50 degrees,” Austin instructed.

On to Samantha, who said the first thing to do was “Go to Grandma’s.” Then, “You take the turkey and s-t-r-e-t-c-h it out, put sauce on it, bake it at 10 degrees for 13 minutes and enjoy it with beef stew and lasagna.”

Hannah starts with pumpkin pie, which you “Kinda bake, or you can buy it at the store.” She’s a proponent of keeping a holiday kitchen cool, so her turkey recipe only takes 5 minutes in a “1 or 2 degree” oven and “you have grease with it.” “Actually,” Hannah confesses, “I don’t really like turkey or pumpkin pie. I just eat candy.”

Kaitlyn doesn’t care for turkey, either, but does have “hot chicken, cooked for 5 minutes at 5 degrees.” “And,” she adds, “We eat hot dogs, too.”

A back-to-the-basics kind of guy, Conner’s first step is to “twist the turkeys’ heads off” followed by 10-60 minutes in the oven (we assume plucking off the feathers is involved somewhere along the way as well). His side dish of choice is potatoes, cooked, if you please.

While these folks are truly my friends, and I love them to pieces, I’m not doing a thing with their advice except to chuckle at it. They are Kindergarten, 1^st and 2^nd graders whose only culinary expertise involves the spreading of peanut butter and jelly. If I want turkey advice, I need to call the experts.

Similarly, many of us spend way too much time seeking out life advice from so-called “friendly experts” like Drs. Laura, Phil and even Oprah (or Ann or Abby) when the “cure for what ails us” lies right between the pages of God’s Word. Psalm 19 reminds us that “God’s laws are perfect. They protect us, make us wise and give us joy and light.” They are “pure, eternal, just…they warn us away from harm and give success to those who obey them.”

Want a moist, delectable, golden brown bird crowning your Thanksgiving table this year? Ignore my little friends, please! Skip the food poisoning and call the Butterball hotline. Want peace? Love? Wisdom? Joy? Skip the self-help gurus and say with the Psalmist, “Open my eyes to see wonderful things in Your Word.” What a reason to give thanks!