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“Giving Thanks”

     November is the month of Thanksgiving, a holiday that celebrates a powerful human capacity: our ability to thank others. As a holiday, I really like Thanksgiving, even though I am not all that fond of turkey. It’s a holiday that carries a story of arrival of some of the early Europeans and their relationships with the Native American peoples.
      A few months ago, my family visited the Plymouth Plantations in Massachusetts, which uses the motto “Two peoples, one story.” The site includes a replica Pilgrim village (enclosed within a stockade) as well as a replica Native American settlement of several lodges. It also includes a craft shop, where one can see how the two cultures might have made their tools, furnishings, weapons, and other artifacts. In addition to typical modern-day fare, the cafeteria served Pilgrim-era victuals.  Finally, it includes an interpretive center, which I found really interesting. In one of the galleries, there was a presentation on the story of the first Thanksgiving, intentionally telling the story from a different perspective. It’s rather surprising how little we actually know about the event, and the claim was not that this was the story of the first Thanksgiving, but that this was a very different story of that event, as congruent with the few known facts as is the “conventional” story we have all learned.
      We do know that the governor of the Pilgrim colony declared a celebration of thanks for a successful harvest. We know that celebration included some amount of firing of muskets, perhaps a marksmanship contest. We might guess that the Native Americans, already uncertain about their new European neighbors, realized that gunshots could mean trouble. Their leaders, not wanting to receive an unpleasant surprise, might well have called their warriors together and gone to investigate. The Pilgrim settlement, with about forty adult male inhabitants, might suddenly have found itself facing over a hundred armed Native American warriors. After some discussion, in which the Native American leaders could have been convinced that there was no danger, they may have sent some hunters out. The hunters, in turn, might have returned with deer, turkey, and other game to be included in the feast. From here, in the sharing of the Thanksgiving dinner, the contours of the story resemble those of the conventional Thanksgiving story.
      In this alternative version of the story, we can give thanks that the Native Americans took the time to learn, rather than attacking first and asking questions later. We can give thanks that they took the risk of trusting the other. For us, too, there can be a risk to trusting, but it is a risk that we are called to take, lest we extend our society’s cultures of distrust. We need not always agree with each other, but we can trust each other enough to find out whether we agree or disagree.  
      In this season of gratitude, may we give thanks for those who trust us. May we give thanks for the blessings of our lives, large and small. May our lives bless the world, and bring it closer to the beloved community that it has the potential to become.

Yours in thanksgiving, Bill S.