OPINION:
The first Thanksgiving on American soil probably occurred in May 1541 near what is now Canyon, Texas, where Father Juan de Padilla said Mass for an army of 1,500 soldiers under the command of conquistador Francisco Vasquez de Coronado. Or it may have occurred on Sept. 8, 1565, when Father Francisco Lopez said Mass for the 800 newly arrived Spanish colonists in St. Augustine, Florida.
Or, among the English, it took place Dec. 4, 1619, when the leader of the settlers who landed at Berkeley Hundred (in present-day Henrico County, Virginia) commanded that: “We ordaine that this day of our ships’ arrival, at the place assigned for plantation, in the land of Virginia, shall be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of Thanksgiving for Almighty God.”
Virginia, not content to take credit for creating the nation, also insists that this should be rightly celebrated at the first Thanksgiving.
Despite all that, the Pilgrims’ celebration in Massachusetts remains the dominant narrative of Thanksgiving in our society, and probably for good reason. In 1621, in the wake of a bountiful harvest after a year of terrible sickness and unimaginable hardship — almost half of the small contingent of 102 souls died of disease or privation during that first year — the Pilgrims set aside a day to give thanks to God for all of it.
Thanksgiving for bounty? Of course. Thanksgiving for sickness and hardship? Absolutely. The Pilgrims correctly believed that everything we receive is a gift from God, both the events and people we immediately recognize as good and the events and people in which we have trouble seeing the good.
Unfortunately, much of the religious tenor of Thanksgiving has been erased by those who are indifferent to God and religion and those who view discomfort of any sort as something to be avoided at all costs. As a result, Thanksgiving has devolved into litanies of happy things that have happened to relatives, friends and famous people. Few express gratitude for the “bad” things that have happened, because few believe that everything we experience — the good and the bad — is part of God’s plan for us.
The reality is that bad things happen to all of us, and for whatever reason, God lets them happen. Our lives are not solely our own; we did not create ourselves, nor did we create the universe in which we live. Consequently, we are rarely in a position to determine which experiences are good and which are bad.
Many of the bad experiences people endure are also the richest opportunities for learning and for growth, although they may not be understood as such in the moment. The Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard captured this when he wrote: “Life can only be understood (looking) backward. But it must be lived forward.”
The Pilgrims were grateful not only for the harvest or the friendly Indians or whatever. They were also grateful for God’s providential, watchful and caring love, however that was manifested. Our own destiny and that of our nation are, in many respects, in the hands of a loving and just God.
One of the participants in that first Thanksgiving was Richard Warren. He was almost certainly a refugee from debtors’ prison back in England, and he, like the rest of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, barely survived his first year on the western edge of the North Atlantic. At times, he must have wondered whether dying in a new land was God’s plan for him.
It was not. His wife and children, who had stayed behind in England, joined him in 1623. The family had two more children before Richard died in 1628. His children survived into adulthood and had large families. It is estimated that 40% of those who claim ancestors on the Mayflower are related to Warren. His descendants include Joseph Warren (the founder of Harvard Medical School), the Roosevelts and Ulysses S. Grant.
All of us remain very grateful for his sacrifice and steadfastness in those first difficult moments on this continent; they ultimately yielded fruit a hundredfold. God’s plan for Warren, indecipherable to him in the moment, was to help provide the new nation with the skilled leaders it would need.
This Thanksgiving, think about Richard Warren and the millions of others who have struggled and still struggle to improve their lives and those of their children, neighbors and nation. Make sure to thank the Author of all things for these people and for everything you’ve been given, both the good and bad.
• Michael McKenna is a contributing editor at The Washington Times and a relative of Richard Warren.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.