In the United States, Thanksgiving Day this year will be officially celebrated on Thursday, November 28, 2013.
Years ago, the Pilgrims reached the coast of the present-day state of Massachusetts. After about 65 days of mostly rough weather at sea, land was sighted on November 9, 1620. Despite the misery they had endured on the long voyage across the Atlantic Ocean, the passengers stopped and recited together a prayer of thanksgiving to have reached the shores of the Americas.
Of the102 passengers who had joined in that voyage from persecution to freedom, two died enroute and one, the child Oceanus, was born. From their sailing vessel, the Mayflower, 101 colonists disembarked in the cold and wet of November, 1620 to land and step on Plymouth Rock.
By the end of that first winter in March of 1621, only 47 of the Pilgrim band remained alive.
Spring presented little prospect for thanksgiving. Very little food remained. The surviving settlers had seed and drive, but the new arrivals possessed little knowledge of their surroundings and no experience with the planting and raising of the native corn. The Wampanoag did. This was their home. They watched, they waited and they approached. The native peoples helped the newcomers to plant the crops and hunt and gather from the lands of the Massachusetts.
The Wampanoag had little cause for their generosity. The tribe had been decimated by European diseases, and many of their members had been sold into slavery by European traders. Yet, without expectation of return, they extended the strength of their hands, the knowledge in their heads and the kindness of their hearts. This land was their home. They knew its ways, and the natives showed the new ones how to make the land theirs.
A harvest was made, and it was a harvest of plenty.
No one knows the date of that first thanksgiving on the shores of the Americas. I like to think it was on the anniversary of the Pilgrim’s arrival, and unlike the cold and wet day in 1620, this day in November of 1621 was a warm sunny day, a day of Indian summer along the New England coast.
They all gathered: the Pilgrims, the crew who were now colony members and the Wampanoag. Each brought what they could to that first celebration. The bounty was spread on the tables and on blankets across the ground. It was more than enough, much more.
Family, friends and neighbors spent that day together sharing what they had in common, smiling, watching the children run and play, tasting each other’s special dishes, trading stories, exchanging keepsakes, napping in the warmth of the afternoon, waking, stretching, gathering up the empty dishes and full families, waving across to the departing groups, and in their various languages wishing each other well as they returned happily to their homes in the fading light thankful that from the turmoil and trials of the past year there could be such a simple day of Thanksgiving and hoping for another day to spend together the next year.
In this land of the United States, we will spend that day together soon on November 28th. I think all the lands and all the peoples of this globe have their special days of Thanksgiving. All peoples have suffered, encountered generosity, and been rewarded with good harvests and new friends — perhaps not always bountiful harvests, but always true friends to help us on our ways. Perhaps it is these shared experiences and faithful companions, as much as our good fortunes, that cause us wherever we live and on whatever the date to stop and whisper “Thank you,” gather and hold our own special Day of Thanks.
May the bounty of the land and the warmth of friendship greet you on your Thanksgiving Day,
Grandpa Jim