Though my high school did not have any tradition like ‘Senior Superlatives’ where classmates
anonymously offered their true—and perhaps petty—feelings about one another, I have lived the
American experience long enough to understand how it works. Being voted “Most Likely to Be Late for His/Her Own Wedding” may be a humorous slight, but being dubbed “Most Likely to Drop His/Her Phone in a Toilet” warrants some serious personal reflection. In my world, Thanksgiving clears the field as “Holiday Most Likely to Leave Everyone Wanting More.” It is by far my favorite semi-religious holiday.
End-of-season harvest festivals exist throughout history and throughout most of our planet, but
American Thanksgiving wraps harvest festival with positive Pilgrim-Indian relations in a warm, flannel blanket of gratitude to God. After a later-than-expected arrival in Massachusetts Bay in 1620, and after almost a calendar year of death among the ship-weary Pilgrims, the local Wampanoag people and Squanto in particular deserve express commendation for keeping the Pilgrims alive. Even if relations between settlers and native Americans were not always respectful or gracious, at this moment in the fall of 1621, they were.
Roughly fifty Pilgrims were joined unexpectedly by about ninety of their Wampanoag neighbors, and they accidentally inaugurated an American fall festival for the ages. Edward Winslow and William Bradford provided the only two primary source writings documenting the event. They divulge that after reading their homes for the coming winter, the Pilgrims decided to participate in a time of festivity and rejoicing. With a stellar haul of wild turkeys and other fowl, the company engaged in recreation, exercised their guns, and celebrated over a span of three days while hosting the Wampanoag braves who themselves had contributed five deer for the occasion. Goodwill, comradery, breaking bread together, thankfulness…this superlative holiday exhibits all of these things. The tender scars enduring on the souls of those fifty-three Pilgrim survivors who lost so much, and the future wounds transmitted to those on both sides due to mistrust, misunderstanding, and lost faith matter less on this occasion. On this occasion people of totally different hemispheres and worldviews ate, talked, laughed, played, and contributed.
When I hear suggestions that people shun family members who voted differently or extract a petulant revenge through bombast at family gatherings, I pity such small people who understand so little about genuine sacrifice and grace. Like the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot/Tabernacles, American Thanksgiving abides as a reminder that humanity shares in God’s provision and that thankfulness and joy should be occasioned by that provision. It is a superlative holiday which always leaves me wanting more and serves as a wonderful lead-in to the winter holidays of Advent and Hanukkah. Happy Thanksgiving to all!
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