How we are rooted in God

For many, Thanksgiving Day will bring a respite from the turbulence.

By Matt Walsh
| 6:00 a.m. November 26, 2015

Longboat Key
Opinion

The world is roiling.

They’re out there, everywhere: Anxiety. Uncertainty. Fear. Stage II cancers, and spreading.

Are we safe? Is this a prelude?

At home, we have strife, too. Discord: whose lives matter … disrespect for law enforcement … intolerance of speech and religion … should states be forced to take Syrian refugees? … And the president carps, tears apart. He is supposed to unite. He refuses to fight.

All of it: disturbs, distracts, angers, creates angst. What’s next?

And yet, as always, you go on, live in the moment, move ahead.

For many, Thanksgiving Day will bring a respite from the turbulence. A day that kindles in us great gratitude for what we have — for our families and friends and the blessings bestowed on us. And it’s a day we pray that God looks with favor on those who are less fortunate than we.

Thanksgiving is also a time to take stock. To look beyond the moment and the golden turkey and reflect.

We do this every year here. We like to retell the story and roots of Thanksgiving, because this story of our forefathers — the Pilgrims — helps reset our compass. It reminds us how we came to be — the New Hope in the New World. It reminds us of who we are and who we are supposed to be.

Persecution of the pilgrims

Washington's 1789 Thanksgiving proclamation

WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me “to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLICK THANKSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:”

NOW THEREFORE, I do recommend and assign THURSDAY, the TWENTY-SIXTH DAY of NOVEMBER next, to be devoted by the people of these States 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; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish Constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted; for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favours which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also, that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in publick or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us); and to bless them with good governments, peace and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

The roots of Thanksgiving Day go far deeper than the popular story of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony in 1622. Yes, they were thankful to God for their bountiful harvest and their newfound Indian friends. But if you can imagine yourself in the shoes of any of the original 102 Pilgrims who sailed from Leyden, Holland, for America, a land unknown, and who survived that tumultuous journey, followed by two years of near starvation, your gratitude simply for being alive would put a whole new perspective on Thanksgiving Day. It was far more than being being thankful for a big fall harvest and feast.

Seldom, if ever, do we focus in our history texts on the details that compelled the Pilgrims — also known as Separatists, Puritans and Calvinists — to set sail. The textbooks typically mention — briefly — they fled religious persecution. But especially today, in this world of renewed religious persecutions, it’s instructive to remember the details of why the Pilgrims mustered the courage to cross the Unknown Ocean for freedom — religious freedom.

In his 500-page, handwritten account of Plymouth Plantation, Gov. William Bradford wrote how his fellow Calvinists in England became “hunted and persecuted on every side, so as their former afflictions were but as flea-bitings in comparison of these which now came upon them.

“For some were taken and clapped up in prison, others had their houses beset and watched night and day, and hardly escaped their hands; and most were faine to flee and leave their houses and habitations, and the means of their livelehood,” Bradford wrote.

After a year of this and meeting in secret to practice their worship of God, they saw “they could no longer continue in this condition,” and “resolved to get over into Holland.” The people of Amsterdam, they had heard, accepted the free practice of religion.

But sailing 200 miles to Amsterdam was no small matter; it was a monumental ordeal. Bradford describes the fear many of the Separatists had of leaving England, as bad as it was, as “a misery worse than death.”

“But these things did not dismay them — for their desires were set on the ways of God and to enjoy his ordinances,” Bradford wrote.

The trip to Holland was horrible for many. Chartered ship operators, once at sea with the Separatists, robbed them; ransacked their belongings; molested many of the women; and then sailed back into the original port and turned over the Separatists to local authorities, who then imprisoned them.

Amazingly, the Separatists didn’t give up. “Some few shrunk at these first conflicts and sharp beginnings,” Bradford wrote, “yet many more came on with fresh courage and greatly animated others. And in the end, notwithstanding all these storms of opposition, they all got over at length.”

For 12 years, the Calvinist-Separatist-Pilgrims lived and practiced their religion in freedom and peace in Leyden, an area within Amsterdam where many of them became weavers.

And then the trouble began again. Bradford wrote of “Arminians, who greatly molested the whole state” and university professors and other preachers who began to slander the Pilgrims’ religious practices. The tormenting rose to such a level that Bradford said some of his neighbors preferred being in prison in England than “this liberty in Holland, with these afflictions.”

Difficulties, but not invincible

Distressed by the increasing abuse, the Separatists’ elders began to look ahead. They believed within a few years they “were fearful either to be entrapped or surrounded by their enemies” and unable to flee.

What’s more, they worried about their children. It was common for them to labor long hours in the mills, “their bodies bowed under the weight.” Many children also were falling to the temptations of youthful “licentiousness” and being drawn into “extravagant and dangerous courses,” Bradford wrote. Parents saw “their posterity would be in danger to degenerate and be corrupted.”

At the same time, many of the Separatists looked outward and spoke among their neighbors of “advancing the gospel of the kingdom of Christ in those remote parts of the world,” Bradford wrote.

All three of these influences — persecution, the well-being of their families’ future generations and spreading God’s word — combined to motivate the Pilgrims to seek a new beginning. As they discussed their options, Bradford wrote, “It was answered … the difficulties were many, but not invincible.”

So they set sail to a land unknown. Bradford wrote of “winds so fierce and the seas so high,” and the Mayflower “shroudly shaken” and leaky, raising the constant fear the ship would shrink and they would perish at sea.

When they finally stepped on land in the harbor at Cape Cod, Bradford wrote the Pilgrims “fell upon their knees and blessed the God of heaven, who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean and delivered them from all the perils and miseries thereof.”

Cornerstone: Rooted in God

Nearly 170 years later, when George Washington proclaimed the first national Thanksgiving Day in 1789 (see below), he eloquently articulated his heartfelt gratitude for “the many and signal favors of Almighty God” bestowed on the young republic and its people.

Washington expressed his conviction that our nation’s birth and existence were the result of the grace of God — “His kind care and protection” and “manifold mercies.” And with his proclamation, Washington cemented again the cornerstone that the Pilgrims laid — that our nation is rooted in religion and faith in God.

We’re not a secular nation. We believe in God.

As you gather with family and friends, reflect on and remember that Thanksgiving is far greater than a celebration of a bountiful harvest. It’s a reminder of who we are.

Happy Thanksgiving.