Even though Christmas may have become secularized, the beauty of Thanksgiving is that it retains its religious tone. When we give thanks, we always have to give thanks for something to someone. If someone says, “I am thankful,” one can ask two logical questions, “for what?” and “to whom?” If a person can’t answer either of these two questions, then it’s silly for the person to say “I am thankful.”
When we celebrate Thanksgiving, there is an understood sense that we are thankful for the blessings we have received and that we are thanking God for them.
A few years ago I had the opportunity to visit Plymouth, Massachusetts where the pilgrims celebrated the first thanksgiving in 1621. Plymouth Plantation is a reconstruction of the original colony just a few miles away from its original site which is the present-day city of Plymouth.
Every student in the US learns that the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. It was an anticlimactic experience when I saw the much talked about Plymouth Rock (below).
This Unitarian Universalist Church sits on the site of the original meeting house of the colony. The sign in front of it reads “1620 First Parish in Plymouth” and a plaque states “The Church of Scrooby Leyden and the Mayflower gathered on this hillside in 1620 has ever since preserved unbroken records and maintained a continuous ministry its first covenant being still the basis of its fellowship in reverent memory of its pilgrim founders. This fifth meeting-house was erected A.D. MDCCCXCVII”
Pictures are mine, all rights reserved
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