The Real Pilgrims

It’s November, and I’ve been reading a lot of Pilgrim stories lately. When the kindergarteners come home at lunchtime, we sit by the fire and thumb through a few books before they tuck in for their naps. Squanto, Massasoit, William Bradford and others are coming to life from the pages of beautifully illustrated stories about the First Thanksgiving. Images of golden-orange pumpkins, fat turkeys and a thatch-roofed colony by the sea have sparked our imaginations and our family conversations. The stories have made me reflect again on the Pilgrims. Which Pilgrims? The real ones.

I went to Plimouth Plantation in Massachusetts a few years ago, and it was inspiring. However, I can’t say that the memorials aptly described the real people who lived there. The simple houses and gardens did display a colony of peace and industrialism near the blue sea. The self-tour plaques explained about a new life of freedom. But, I didn’t feel that they truly told the whole story. They didn’t entirely answer the question, Why? Why were the Pilgrims so oppressed in England? Why did they leave Holland? Even in the Old World they had gardens and houses. Then why risk their lives to come to the New World? There’s a foundation to the Pilgrims’ sacrifices that has been nearly removed from our remembrances and celebrations today.

The Pilgrims weren’t just about food, fun or festivities, or giving thanks for a new land. Not even about turkey and cranberries – though they may have eaten some during that first celebration. They weren’t just about white hats and collars, or golden-buckled shoes. They weren’t about Indian games and roasted corn. Pumpkin pie doesn’t describe them. And football on the big screen is about as far from Pilgrim life as you can get (though we all enjoy a good game on our favorite Thursday.)

Nope. The Pilgrims were about God and religion. They came to America for the express purpose of worshiping as they chose. The opportunity to pray and read their Bibles and teach their children without oppression was paramount, and worth risking their lives for. And others followed them. Our shores became the melting pot for people of many faiths, with a belief in a creator who granted freedom to all.

Religion to them was not a façade of personal desire or actualization. It was the true, humble worship of a being that they believed was greater than them and had divine rules, which should be followed. Their stalwart standards of devotion – marked by their prayer and gratitude – set the foundation for our nation.

The Pilgrims’ pattern of faith continued through those early years of our nation’s development. On Thursday, Nov. 26, 1789, President George Washington proclaimed a day of “public thanksgiving and prayer” devoted to “the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be.”

While our new nation granted religious freedom to all, and the promise that the government would never force religion (or the lack thereof) on its citizens, these very liberties were implemented with the mutual understanding that they were bestowed by God himself. And the separation of church and state still included the founding belief that our nation was united under God.

Seventy-four years after Washington’s proclamation, on October 3, 1863, Thanksgiving became a national holiday under the direction of President Abraham Lincoln. His proclamation mentioned the “…bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come…”

After mentioning the abundance of America, despite the horrors of the current Civil War, Lincoln declared, “It has seemed to me fit and proper that they [the bounties] should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States … to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.” Indeed, the very recognition of a supreme being – as demonstrated by so many of our nation’s leaders – is what makes our country unique and great.

So, who were the real Pilgrims? A humble, God-fearing people, who are now at the center of a beautiful holiday where families and friends come together to give thanks and celebrate. But give thanks for what? And to whom? We can answer these questions individually in our homes and families during this season. However, whatever our personal blessings and circumstances, the act of thanksgiving itself is a recognition of God, of someone who created us all and bestowed gifts upon us.

Along with the turkey, the potatoes, the pie and the cranberries, if we are to truly celebrate on Thanksgiving Thursday, we must also dish up a healthy serving of faith, and remember the real Plymouth Pilgrims, who sacrificed and inaugurated our nation through their belief in God.