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Hollie Atkinson's column appears in the
Marshall
News Messenger every Saturday morning.
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November 23, 2002
Next Thursday we will celebrate Thanksgiving by feasting and watching football. It will be the official beginning of the Christmas season and Marshall will turn on the Wonderland of Lights.
Of all of our holidays, Thanksgiving is my favorite. I think this is because the holiday remains uncommercialized more than other days we observe.
In October, my wife and I spent three weeks in New England. We spent a day at Plymouth Plantation, a re-enactment of life in the seventeenth century. We went aboard the Mayflower II, a 1957 reconstruction of the ship that brought the Pilgrims to the New World in 1620 A.D.
The ship was so small - 100 feet by 25 feet, yet it housed 102 passengers (representing some 50 different families) and twenty plus crew members for the two month voyage. In addition to several canon for protection, there was a 33-foot, four ton Mayflower Shallop on board which the Pilgrims would use as a work boat. And then there were enough supplies to last the passengers for a year. All of this was contained on a boat just five times as long as the bass boats we use on our large lakes.
The impression that kept probing my mind was how few material things these folk had and yet they are the architects of our day of giving thanks. They started with little and one year later, November 1621, they had even less. Every family had buried loved ones that first year - only half survived to commemorate their first anniversary in a new world. Their harvest had been meager and the ship to re-supply them was late.
Amidst unbelievable hardship, they commemorated that first anniversary by "giving thanks!" Rather than focus on what they had lost, that group of seekers after religious freedom decided to focus on what they had going for them - the Indians had been their friends - half of their group had survived - though the storehouses were not full, they did have some supplies. So, Governor Bradford said, "LET US GIVE THANKS!"
Thanksgiving is not a day but an attitude of families and nations that causes them to focus on their blessings rather than their losses. I suspect that the greatness of our country can be traced back to that little band of English Separatists led by their pastor, William Brewster who refused to focus on what they did not have but to be thankful for their blessings.
Thanksgiving, it is our legacy from our forefathers - let's probate their will and exercise our inheritance on Thursday!
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