Annual Benediction

As the last Thursday of November approaches, we prepare for a nationwide celebration of giving thanks. The facts behind this holiday blur with the abridgement of history and the passage of time. I point out certain misunderstandings not to lessen the day's import, but to illuminate how time distorts our view.

This week, eager young minds learn about the First Thanksgiving in 1621 at Plymouth Plantation. Forgotten are the thanksgivings held by Martin Forbisher in Newfoundland in 1578, by the Spanish in St. Augustine in 1569, or by colonists in Virginia in 1619.

Another fallacious fact concerns the Puritans. That first group of religious refugees who landed on Cape Cod wanted to separate from the Church of England. They called themselves Saints and others called them Separatists.

Puritans did not disembark onto our shores until several years later in Boston Harbor. They wanted to purify, not separate, from the Church of England. These strict, intolerant zealots presided over the infamous witch trials, banished or slaughtered those who would not convert to the Puritan view. Think of them as the colonial Taliban.

Those desperate settlers scratching existence on the Cape did not call themselves pilgrims. But that term is more accurate. In his Of Plimouth Plantation, William Bradford borrowed from the Old Testament (Hebrew 11: 13-16), "..they were pilgrims and strangers on earth." In the 18th century, writers like Cotton Mather began calling these emigres, pilgrims.

These trivialities don't amount to a hill of mashed potatoes as you sit enjoying food, family, friends and football. What matters most is to give thanks for what you have. I want to thank all of you for tolerating my musings and broadsides. As ever - BB

"Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity: it must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all." - William Faulkner