Giving thanks for our differences

When the Pilgrims traveled to America on the Mayflower, before coming ashore, they wrote a Compact, or an agreement, on how they would govern themselves.

Not … so … fast, says Florida historian Michael Gannon.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year.

As Thanksgiving nears, Americans are getting ready to open their mouths and loosen their belts to celebrate the day. Many Native Americans do not celebrate the arrival of Pilgrims and other European settlers. What was on the table at the first Thanksgiving scarcely resembles what we think of today as a traditional Thanksgiving dinner.

How do we bring back the thanks.

Diana Karter Applebaum’s book, “Thanksgiving: An American Holiday, An American History”, relates that the celebration was moved around for two centuries until eventually, by presidential decree, it was fixed on the last Thursday in November.

Now called Oktober Feesten, Leiden’s autumn thanksgiving celebration in 1617 was the occasion for sectarian disturbance that appears to have accelerated the pilgrims plans to emigrate to America.

Social media sites are full of complaints about the celebration of Thanksgiving. She is also the one who suggested the idea to President Lincoln, who saw the value of such a day to help heal the wounds of a divided nation.

Because the Pilgrims’ fervor for religious liberty was devoid of an ethic of accountability, they did not proceed with moral liability or legal justice.

This Thursday, our families will sit down to give thanks and count our many blessings. “It is a day of remembrance and spiritual connection as well as a protest of the racism and oppression which Native Americans continue to experience”. People received the same rations whether or not they contributed to producing the food, and residents were forbidden from producing their own food. Squanto, a Patuxet Native American who resided with the Wampanoag tribe, taught the Pilgrims how to catch eel and grow corn. The farmer, concerned that the colonists “weary’d heaven with their complaints”, instead proposed giving thanks that their situation was improving.

“For many of us, the meaning of Thanksgiving usually includes feasting, four-day weekends, football games, floats, family reunions, or a forerunner to Christmas festivities”.

This Thanksgiving Day, as you deal with increased security at airports and rhetoric from Presidential candidates, it may be easy to focus on all that is wrong with our society. Not everyone wants to hear that message while gorging on turkey and filling Facebook with thanks for friends, families and good lives.

We in this nation of immigrants and refugees add to that persecution when we reject desperate refugees out of fear or argue that they be divided into groups of welcome Christians and unwelcome Muslims.

Yes, Puritins were super religious people who flead England for religious freedom, but remember, these were the radicals generally known as Separatists.