OUT TO PASTOR: I don’t eat crow on holidays

I enjoy the holiday season because of the food I get to eat.

From Halloween to New Year’s Day, the focus is food. Some of the best food of the whole year is during this time.

In true confession, throughout the rest of the year, I eat crow almost every day.

It is a diet developed by The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage. It has taken some time for her to create such a diet for me, and she’s done a marvelous job.

It took me quite a while to understand this diet of eating crow. But if I understand it correctly, it means admitting you’re wrong and were not right about what you thought or a statement you made to others.

That’s quite a definition, and I’m not sure I understand it even today.

I must admit that throughout the year, I vehemently made statements that were not true. It’s not how many true statements I make throughout the year but the false statements I make that matter.

How many times I’ve been wrong is beyond my calculation. Oh, if I only was 16 again when I knew everything.

Sometimes, we will be with a group of friends, and I’ll be telling a story that happened recently, and then in the middle of that story, The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage will jump in and say, “No, it didn’t happen that way.” Then she will correct my story, and I’m standing there – eating crow.

One of these days, I’m going to figure out a way so that The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage can find out what it means to eat crow. So far, I have yet to come to any conclusion here. But I am working very hard to find something along this line.

She was telling about our wedding one time, and I interrupted her and said, “No, my dear, the wedding was on Aug. 14.”

Looking at me with a confused look, she said, “That’s what I just said. Our wedding was August 14.”

“I’m sorry; I thought you said our wedding was Aug. 15.”

Do you know what a pleasure it is to see so many people confused, especially The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage?

Sometimes, eating crow is worth the situation you find yourself in. I don’t always create chaos in my life, but I try to make the best of it when it does happen.

I’m looking for the opportunity when I catch my wife on something that will cause her to eat crow. I will not give up on this adventure.

But there is so much more to eat during the holiday season than crow. All of the beautiful meals that are set before us have my attention all the way through.

The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage and I are a fantastic team. She loves to cook, and I love to eat. What better partnership can you have? All the crow I eat during the rest of the year is worth all the holiday meals at this time.

I must confess that The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage is very careful how I eat crow. She rarely lets me do it in front of people. I may be telling some story, but she doesn’t correct me when people are around.

On our way home from that gathering, she will begin the conversation by saying, “Soooo, is that really how that situation happened?”

Usually, I’m not sure what she’s talking about, and I respond by saying, “What situation?”

Then begins the crow-eating marathon. I always get things wrong, and she loves correcting me, but usually when we are alone.

I would probably get my name wrong if she weren’t there to correct me. It’s not that I don’t like her correcting me because I do. It’s agitating at the time, but in the long run, eating crow does have its advantages.

If the truth were known, she has a way of preparing my crow, so I, to some degree, enjoy eating it. How she does it, I don’t know; maybe I should begin taking notes.

My problem is when she is talking about a situation in front of a group of people with me there, I really don’t know if it’s true or not. I assume what she is saying is true.

Driving home from one of those meetings, she was quiet for a moment and then said something to the effect, “Well, did you get all the mistakes I made in that story I told?”

She told the story and twisted it so much that nothing was true, and I never recognized it. That made me think she could get away with anything as far as I was concerned. Now, that’s a different piece of crow to eat that I’ve never had before.

Thinking about that a verse of scripture came to mind. “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy” (Proverbs 28:13).

Probably the hardest thing I can do is to confess my sin and ask for forgiveness. However, it is the best thing to do. Eating crow sometimes is worth it.

Dr. James L. Snyder lives in Ocala, FL with the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage. Telephone is (352) 216-3025, e-mail is jamessnyder51@gmail.com, and website is www.jamessnyderministries.com.