National Aspirations in the Pilgrim Story

You can tell a lot about a people by the stories they tell. Of course the quintessential Thanksgiving stories are about the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth. You know the basics. The Pilgrims landed late in the year after traveling across the ocean cramped in a tiny vessel. Within a year, half died. In the spring, they met some Native Americans who showed the Pilgrims how to plant, hunt and fish in ways that worked in New England. The tiny colony survived. In the fall, the Pilgrims and the Native Americans sat down and shared a great feast together in peace.

Now anyone that studies history at all knows the story is much more involved than that, both for the English settlers and for the various Native American groups who interacted with them. There are some very ugly parts to that tale. It's the over-simplified story, however, that sticks in our minds and that's the one we tell at Thanksgiving. The "real" story with all its warts is important, but the version told in countless elementary-school plays is important as well.

I like the simplicity of the basic Pilgrim Story because of what it says about our ideals. We are a nation of people who want to get along with others. We are a nation of people who are generous and share with those in need. That's the ideal, anyway. It is an understatement to say that we have not always lived up to that ideal. Telling the Pilgrim Story at Thanksgiving encourages us to see ourselves as the kind of people the story describes. Telling the story encourages us to live up to those ideals, to live in peace with our neighbors and to share with those in our communities. The story reminds us of who we claim to be as a nation, and it shows us at our idealized best.

The Pilgrim Story tells us that we aspire to be a nation of peaceful and caring people. It also tells us that we are hardy and resilient people. The Pilgrims endure great hardships and still gave thanks to God for his providence. Lincoln drew on that aspect of the Thanksgiving Story when he called for a day of thanksgiving in the midst of the American Civil War. The passing of the years continues to throw new challenges at our nation and its citizens. Our hard times are different than those of the Pilgrims or even of Civil War era Americans, but they are hard times just the same. The story of Pilgrim perseverance can continue to inspire us today.

Let us be the nation that lives up to the ideals of it foundational stories. Let us be as strong and resilient, as caring and generous, and as committed to peace as the settlers and natives whose story we tell at this time of year.

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