Pastor's Blog: Assumptions Are Often Wrong
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If you like Mexican food but don’t like to stand in line for a table, then make sure you avoid going to a Mexican restaurant this Saturday, which will be the fifth of May, or as it’s known in Spanish, Cinco de Mayo.
I learned this lesson like most of the ones I’ve learned – the hard way. I had never eaten Mexican food growing up in West Alabama, aside from the frozen TV dinners you had to warm up in the oven. But when I married Judy, she introduced me to this cuisine, and for the last forty years, I’ve eaten it at least twice a week. But the one time I vowed never to go back was one May 5th, when my clueless self didn’t know the difference between Cinco de Mayo and Vigesimo de Diciembre (the only other Spanish date I know, which happens to be my birthday). Not only was the wait that day interminable, but because the kitchen was so backed up, I feasted on too many chips and salsa and had to carry the leftovers from my main meal home (which gave me a strange sense of nostalgia when I warmed it up in the oven a couple of days later). Only after asking around about why so many people had graced that particular restaurant on that particular day did I learn from someone I considered knowledgeable on Mexican culture that Cinco de Mayo, the 5th of May, is like our Fourth of July. It’s the Mexican Independence Day. And so for the last 20 or so years, I’ve avoided the date that I had been told was a special holiday south of the border.
Only last year did I learn that Cinco de Mayo is not the Mexican Independence Day. That day is September 16 (which happens to be my mother’s birthday). May 5th commemorates instead the Mexican army’s unlikely victory over the French forces of Napoleon III at the Battle of Puebla in 1862. It seems that Mexico had built up a large debt to the French and they had come to collect, precipitating this battle, which sent the French back across the Atlantic empty-handed. As I understand it, if you were to go into a restaurant in Mexico today on May 5th and wish the crowd a hearty Cinco de Mayo, they would look at you as if you were crazy. It’s just another day there. Evidently, Cinco de Mayo is an American holiday ginned up (pun intended) by the alcohol industry to encourage alcohol consumption during an otherwise down time in their business cycle. I guess if the industry needs to encourage consumers to imbibe more, one excuse is as good as the other as they see it.
Since I am not a consumer of such beverages, the day is special for me for another reason. Because I initially accepted what someone told me about the so-called “holiday” at face value only learning its true meaning relatively recently, I have come to celebrate the day as one of Mistaken Assumptions. Not that I care that much about my lengthy misinterpretation of a sham celebration – it’s more that, looking back, I’m reminded of how it never hurts to fact-check a new insight that comes to you lest you needlessly perpetuate a mistruth, which never does anyone any good, not the teller or the hearer. If you desire to be a person of truth, then it’s always much better to validate something before you share it because of how, at the end of the day, only the truth ever blesses anyone
So, if you plan to go out for Mexican fare this Saturday, go early. But don’t look for me; I’ll probably decide to wait until Sexto de Mayo, after church of course. After all, in the grand scheme of things, every day with Jesus should have a little something to celebrate, which is most definitely no assumption. If anything, it is surely a statement of faith.
“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are of God” (1 John 4:1).