Its Thanksgiving in America. Thanking has, unfortunately, become a lost art in the country who should be the most thankful. If the schools are not going to educate our children about Americas trials and tribulations to become and to stay free, SOMEONE needs to do it and it obviously starts with parents. In our land of excess today, we barely can relate to the difficulties and hardships that our ancestors experienced...actually more for us than for themselves. It is sad to know how unappreciative, uncaring, and uninformed we all are. Because we are once again under threat of losing so much of our purpose and our appreciation for what we have been given, this may be the new enlightenment time to learn what we and our children did not learn from our (expensive) educational system. 102 passengers arrived---after a grueling two month voyage, not only in a strange, wild land, in 1620---but in an area totally unplanned. The MAYFLOWER was to dock in a pre-destined permit-given area near the Hudson River off Long Island. As we know, it was Cape Cod Bay in Massachusetts. Infertile land. Extreme winter approaching. All alone. Some had died enroute and fully one half of those who arrived died within the first year. The fragile on and off relationships with the various Indian tribes for the next half century has either been forgotten or never told. It was continual process of struggle and compromise. Massasoit, Miles Standish, William Bradford, Squanto, Edward and Josiah Winslow---all who can remind us of various leaders today in human nature terms---heroic perhaps, but also calculating, political, and determined. Some may be legendary or myth inspired, but yet barely mentioned in our Thanksgiving knowledge or celebration. Based on this beginning, who of us knows of the next few years of King Philips War? WHO? England king? France? No. Pokanoket Indian sachem. (Many of the Indians had taken on English names within this time period). And Benjamin Church? Carpenter who became a leading frontiersman-Indian fighter and finite negotiator to bring English victory in that King Philips War, but also admired and respected by many of the Indians, some even fighting with him. The courage of the Puritans....and their travel companions, the Strangers...creating the Mayflower Compact (which could be considered the background for our future Declaration of Independence and Constitution)....the giving and actually, sophisticated, adapting-Indian tribes from 1620 to about 1676....IS the history of Thanksgiving that helped define America. We need to honor these ancestors---and in light of todays Thanksgiving Michael Browns War---to realize we must surpass them as a civilized nation. Nearly 400 years later and with all weve been given in abundance---the English of Plymouth Colony, the Wampanoag Indians and following tribes added to our Founding Fathers into the next century---all are being mentally tortured in their graves this day. Their heavenly position of following their sacrifices surely brings concerns as so few seem even willing to know what to be thankful for, let alone work and sacrifice in any small way for its continuation. Philippians 1:3 ~~~ Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God.
Posted on: Wed, 26 Nov 2014 16:41:58 +0000