Sunday, November 27, 2011

"It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" on Thanksgiving...

Charles M. Schultz's birthday was yesterday (November 26th) so I thought this blog post would be particularly timely.


My housemate's grandson came to spend the night on Thanksgiving Eve, and he wanted to watch what I call my "Charlie Brown Holiday Trilogy", which consists of the Charlie Brown Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas specials on DVD. (Sadly, the spinning "Special" logo from the C.B.S. network that used to appear right before specials in the 1970's was not included on the DVD's. I miss that part.)


So, we proceeded to watch the specials, the first one being "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!" As I watched this video for perhaps the hundredth time in my life, I noticed something I hadn't noticed before...


The whole show is about faith in its varied manifestations and how it affects our lives. Hidden within the dialog, I found many nuggets of wisdom.


First, we see Charlie Brown in one of many failed attempts to kick the ball as Lucy holds it for him. No matter how many times she fools him, he's always willing to be a sucker one more time, because Lucy knows just how to manipulate him. It never fails. Lucy succeeds in fooling him because she knows that he wants to believe her, and his inability to kick the ball successfully has left him unfulfilled.


In the next scene, Charlie Brown asks Linus who he is writing to, and Linus explains that he is writing to "The Great Pumpkin", and proceeds to describe an entity that brings a bag of toys to all of the children on Halloween night. Even Charlie Brown, one who has been fooled multiple times by the same person over the same football kicking scenario, finds the idea of a toy-bag-toting pumpkin to be ridiculous. It is then that Linus points out just how ridiculous it is that Charlie Brown believes in the man with the red hat and the white beard that says "Ho, Ho, Ho".


Charlie Brown then comments to the viewer: "We are obviously separated by denominational differences."


As he finishes his letter to "The Great Pumpkin", he ends it with "P.S. If you really are a fake, don't tell me. I don't wanna know."


And so it is with religion.


I'm never quite sure where Linus gets his idea about "The Great Pumpkin", but he's definitely loyal to it, even though it means that he misses out on "Tricks or Treats", as Lucy puts it. Snoopy even laughs at the idea, but that doesn't stop Linus.


In the end, "The Great Pumpkin" never shows up. Linus and Sally never get their toys, and they miss out on "Tricks or Treats" while they are waiting for the pumpkin that flies through the air and delivers toys to all of the children.


Linus had faith in "The Great Pumpkin", while Sally had faith in Linus. In the end, Sally gets angry at Linus for cheating her out of "tricks or treats", and learns a tough lesson: just because you like a guy doesn't mean he's trustworthy or that he knows what he's talking about.


Sadly, there are many people who forego huge chunks of their lives in the hopes of receiving something spectacular from an invisible being (or even a real human). I am one of those people, having placed my trust in someone who helped steer me in a direction that ultimately cost me several years of my life. The men who crashed planes into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 gave up their lives in the hopes of obtaining 71 virgins when they died because they believe in a god that rewards them for doing such things.


The Westboro Baptist Church members believe that they will be rewarded in heaven for protesting at the funerals of soldiers and chanting that "God hates America, and God hates the soldiers who fight to save this evil country."


It's astonishing that adults believe in things that are not only more far-fetched than a flying pumpkin with a bag of toys, but that the things they believe in are so nefarious... a god that rewards people for committing mass murder because the people being murdered believe in a different god? That's something the innocent mind of a child would never come up with.


A god that hates American soldiers because they are paid to defend and/or follow orders of the commander in chief of a country that allows people the free will to choose their own religions (or none at all)? Why would a god hate a country that allows free will when said god supposedly gave us free will himself? I'll never know, because I don't even entertain such nonsense.


There may be a god, there may be a great pumpkin, but until I have more to go on than someone else's imagination and/or writings claiming such things, you won't find me waiting in the field of life for an invisible entity to bring me what I want. You'll find me living my life like this is all there is, and if I end up with nothing but a bag of rocks like Charlie Brown, at least I can say I gave myself a fair chance.


A.





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