Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours. I hope and pray the day brings you time of joy, comfort and time with those who are special to you. I hope you have time to pause and give thanks for the blessings God has bestowed upon you and yours.
Thanksgiving is a two-fold process – it is about being thankful for the gift, AND giving thanks to the giver!
Thanksgiving is a two-fold process – it is about being thankful for the gift, AND giving thanks to the giver!
There
is a special place in my heart for Thanksgiving, for my ancestor, John Howland,
was on the Mayflower. In fact, he is
best known in history books as the young man who was blown overboard during a
storm while crossing the Atlantic. He
was rescued by way of an anchor rope. Some say I inherited his coordination (or lack thereof).
When
we think of the first Thanksgiving, we picture a celebration that is warm and
cozy, with a lavish spread and over-indulgence as we know Thanksgiving to be
today. But these images are not so
true. After two months of confinement on
the Mayflower, the pilgrims anticipated the balmy weather of Virginia, which
they had been told to expect. However,
already weakened from the voyage, they landed in a bitter winter storm in December, 1620.
They
arrived in New England with only enough food to make it through the first
winter. They planted a communal garden
in the summer but the settlers didn't know how to plant Indian corn and the
crop was small. In November of 1621,
more pilgrims arrived without adequate provisions. Governor William Bradford was worried when he
calculated that there was only enough food for six months if everyone took half
their rations.
After
a second hard winter, another ship arrived in May of 1622, with seven more
pilgrims and some letters, but no food! The food supply was almost gone and the people were starving. People began stealing from the community
garden. The communal garden idea wasn't
working. Another ship arrived later in
1622 with some food, but not much. The
daily ration was down to a quarter-pound of bread a day.
Yet
another winter passed, and in 1623, the settlers decided to parcel out the land
to individual families and let the families tend their crops. When they planted their seeds, they were
deeply concerned about the success of the gardens. Governor Bradford noted that they really
meant it when the prayed for their daily bread!
In
the autumn of 1623, the harvest of the pilgrims private gardens was now a great
success. In this spirit of deep
gratitude to God, Governor Bradford declared a day of Thanksgiving. A time of Thanksgiving? Of the eighteen wives on the Mayflower, only
five remained alive for that first Thanksgiving Day three years later, in
November, 1623. The children fared a
little better, but only because, in many cases, their mothers made the supreme
sacrifice. Only one half of the ship's
original roster survived to eat that first meal of Thanksgiving!
So, although we may
picture a well-fed people, surrounding a festive, food-fare, it is better for
us to recall that this first Thanksgiving Day was an act of praise and
gratitude to God:
For
a little bread instead of none!
For
a slim hold on life in place of death!
For
a glimmer of hope in an otherwise uncertain future!
It was not what
they hoped for, but God was with them, and they thanked God for all that was
good.
And on that first Thanksgiving, the
Pilgrims placed on their plates five kernels of corn to remember the great
suffering of the first settlers, the severe rationing that they suffered
through. Yes, they remembered to say
Thank You!
Peace - and Happy Thanksgiving!
Pastor Charlie
I've bee reading the book "Mayflower" this month by Nathaniel Philbrick and thought you might like this passage from the book.
ReplyDeleteFrom Mayflower, by Nathaniel Philbrick:
In the fall of 1620, the Mayflower's ability to steady herself in a gale produced a most deceptive tranquility for a young indentured servant named John Howland. As the Mayflower lay ahull, Howland apparently grew restless down below. He saw no reason why he could not venture out of the fetid depths of the 'tween decks for just a moment. After more than a month as a passenger ship, the Mayflower was no longer a sweet ship, and Howland wanted some air. So he climbed a ladder to one of the hatches and stepped onto the deck.
Howland was from the inland town of Fenstanton, Huntingdonshire, and he quickly discovered that the deck of a tempest-tossed ship was no place for a landsman. Even if the ship had found her own still point, the gale continued to rage with astonishing violence around her. The shriek of the wind through the rope rigging was terrifying, as was the sight of all those towering, spume-flecked waves. The Mayflower lurched suddenly to leeward. Howland staggered to the ship's rail and tumbled into the sea.
That should have been the end of him. But dangling over the side and trailing behind the ship was the topsail halyard, the rope used to raise and lower the upper sail. Howland was in his mid twenties and strong, and when his hand found the halyard, he gripped the rope with such feral desperation that even though he was pulled down more than ten feet below the ocean's surface, he never let go. Several sailors took up the halyard and hauled Howland back in, finally snagging him with a boat hook and dragging him up onto the deck.
When Bradford wrote about this incident more than a decade later, John Howland was not only alive and well, but he and his wife, Elizabeth, were on their way to raising ten children, who would, in turn, produce an astounding eighty-eight grandchildren. A Puritan believed that everything happened for a reason. Whether it was the salvation of John Howland or the sudden death of the young sailor, it occurred because God had made it so. If something good happened to the Saints, it was inevitably interpreted as a sign of divine sanction. But if something bad happened, it didn't necessarily mean that God disapproved; it might mean that he was testing them for a higher purpose. And as they all knew, the true test was yet to come.
Enjoy!