Each year as we approach the Thanksgiving holiday, I’m mindful of the complex origin story of this holiday. It is a wild historic moment and a wonder of the human spirit. Religious refugees manage to escape and survive to make their journey to a new land, only to suffer and struggle with disease and starvation in unfamiliar territory.
But like God appearing to Elijah in the wilderness with sustenance, Patuxet and Wampanoag peoples met them in their need. They welcomed the stranger, even at great personal risk, and changed the future of an entire community through care of immediate needs and education. The secret to survival in Massachussett land was a reimagining what abundance could be, finding adaptation for new ecosystems, and approaching the natural world with an attitude of interdependence rather than domination. The Wampanoag people offered this wisdom and welcomed the strangers to their custom of harvest time thanksgiving. In the generations to come, this season of care would be rejected as the settlers turned toward violence to their neighbors, but this story of the nobility and graciousness offered to pilgrims, should not be eclipsed by the harm to come. The profound care offered to the stranger deserves our remembrance and invites us to reflect, give thanks, and, perhaps, find transformation.
In her book Grateful: The Transformative Power of Giving Thanks, historian and Christian writer Diana Butler Bass shares the insight that “Gratitude is... more than just an emotion. It is also a disposition that can be chosen and cultivated, an outlook toward life that manifests itself in actions—it is an ethic.” As we gather around tables this week with family and chosen family, hopefully we will find that emotion of gratitude. At this holiday we might taste family recipes or grieve a loved one’s absence from the table. We may see sweet faces for the first time in a while or take time to go around the room and share our gratitudes from the year. We hope to find, in the ritual and food and company, the feeling of thanksgiving.
This year, may we also remember that it is more than a feeling, it can be nurtured as a posture toward the world. May we recall the story of the Native American people who modeled the ethic of gratitude. May we honor their example of love through practicing welcome to those who are different from us. May we honor their witness of interdependence by committing ourselves to sustainable care of our earth and ecology. May we honor them through reimagining abundance, walking with humility through the world, and telling their story.