Having a Good Time

My children are very aware of a strange, but consistent phenomenon that happens around our house in the early morning hours after Halloween. I excitedly race around our house gathering up every vestige of black cats and jack-o-lanterns to quickly replace them with turkeys and pilgrims. True confession – not being a big fan of Halloween, I am in fact a Thanksgiving freak. I just love November. The fall pumpkins are still beautiful, the leaves are falling from the trees and everywhere I see reminders of being thankful (at least in my house – the stores only seems to carry Christmas decorations at this time of the year!).

There is one other key factor that causes my elation each year when the calendar rolls over to display November. I know that it is only a few short weeks until we get to celebrate one of the most special times on our family calendar each year – Dowell Thanksgiving. Twenty-five years ago this year, we began gathering as a family to stay together somewhere in the Southeast and celebrate a week of food and fun. Living in different states across the South, this is the one time each year we are all able to be together. Rob’s mom, who we affectionately call Deedah, her five children, their spouses, their children and now even their grandchildren spend five days and four nights eating and playing. When we began twenty-five years ago, Deedah had three grandchildren. Now she has eight grandchildren and three great grandchildren.

Nobody knows how to have a good time like the Dowell family. It is loud, boisterous and filled with laughter. There are only a couple of hours on the clock each day when the entire house is asleep with teens and twenty-somethings playing games until the wee hours and the forty plus generation rising early to cook breakfast and bang around in the kitchen. Competition is a key component of our time together whether we are screaming at the football game on television or loudly debating any issue one might want to imagine. There are normally 8 to 10 conversations going on at once, even when there are only 6 people in the room. Practical jokes are played, charade and poker games won and lost and more butter consumed than should be eaten by a small nation. The Dowells are just plain fun.

My children have grown up in this tradition. They love it. For one week each year, we have pulled away from the demands of life to enjoy the family God has given us on this earth. Many times I have watched as my three had to do hours of homework and makeup work because of the school time they missed. Often they found themselves trying to explain to angry directors why they were missing so many rehearsals. Yet, if ever questioned about why we were pulling them out for this week, I always replied that my children often learned more in these few days with the Dowells than in a month of school.

I think sometimes, as a generation living in the 21st century, we have forgotten how to have a good time. We are so busy achieving, so busy reaching that next goal, so we can reach the next one and then reach the next one, marching on to a distant imagined prize or outcome. As parents, we often begin building our children’s ladders to success at an early age. We strive to keep them on “the master plan” in order to see that they become all they can be. But what has happened to just plain having a good time?

A time to weep and a time to laugh,
A time to mourn and a time to dance. Ecclesiastes 3:4 (NIV)

It may sound silly, but I like to think that week we spend with the Dowells is kind of like what it might be like in heaven. No, our family is not perfect, nor do we fly around with angel wings. But, the fun, the laughter, the enjoying of food and games together, just fit into my picture of what our eternity will be like with Jesus. A place of love, a place of acceptance, a place removed from the fear and anxiety of this world. A place I want to be. A place Jesus invited all of us to be. A place to have a good time.

Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with me.
Revelation 3:20 (NIV)