It’s just that this holiday, I’m determined, with my kids, to focus more on what and who we should be thankful for - and to whom we should offer thanks.Happy Thanksgiving!īetsy Hart hosts the “It Takes a Parent” radio show on WYLL-AM 1160 in Chicago. And what a difference from the feel-good, cafeteria-style, “all about me” Christianity that seems to dominate our religious culture today.Look, I’m all for pumpkin pie with whipped cream from a can squirted all over it. They believed in engaging in the world and celebrating in the best sense (not in today’s legal sense) integrated lives that saw no distinction between the sacred and the secular.Sure they had faults and sins - but what a legacy. Of course, it was in a vigorous religious context, but it was one that sought truth in all things, not “what makes me feel good.” And so they were, well, worldly saints. They determined to consider carefully, rightly and objectively their world and their place in it, their government, their families, the culture, the importance of education and social action, work, money - you name it, they thought about it. But as Ryken points out, most importantly the Puritans simply thought. (At least one Puritan New England husband was excommunicated from his church for not sexually caring for his wife!)Yes, the Puritans gave us our foundation for democracy, including the Mayflower Compact, regular elections, the secret ballot and esteem for the individual. Lewis had it right when he said, “We must view the Puritans as the very opposite of those who bear that name today.”Contrary to current fiction, the Puritans, who received their name from their quest for “purity” in worship, wore primarily colorful clothes, raised the status of women, enjoyed celebrations and sports, did a big business in rum, and, as opposed to the medieval church culture, celebrated sex within marriage as a gift from God. Mencken’s idea that “Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone somewhere may be happy” is nonsense.Instead, Ryken notes, C.S. Puritan scholar Leland Ryken, author of “Worldly Saints: The Puritans As They Really Were” (Zondervan), notes that H.L. They must have really believed in God’s plan for them.”Did they ever.The Pilgrims paved the way for the great Puritan migration to America, the culture of which dominated our country for centuries, and leaves us a legacy still. Just wilderness … and you thought taking out the garbage was bad!”Davis notes: “The Pilgrims risked everything for their religion and ideas.
They do know that there will be no friends, houses or stores there when you arrive.
Your mother and father don’t know much about where you’re going, only that it’s very far away and few Americans have ever been there. You have to leave your home, friends and school behind.
#Pilgrims and puritans series
(Part of the “Don’t Know Much About” series from HarperCollins.)Davis writes: “Imagine your parents telling you that your family is moving. It may be Thanksgiving, but my past holidays have typically been filled more with overeating, football and, by the end of it, four crabby kids than thinking about the early Pilgrims.I want to do better.This Thanksgiving I want my children and myself to better appreciate the depth of the sacrifices the Pilgrims made in pursuing their God - and why it matters, should matter, to all of us.A great tool in this endeavor for young children, which can be adapted to older ones, is “Don’t Know Much About the Pilgrims” by Kenneth C. William Bradford, later governor of Plymouth Plantation, described the Pilgrims leaving Holland for the New World in 1620:”So they left that goodly and pleasant city of Leyden, which had been their resting-place for above 11 years, but they knew that they were pilgrims and strangers here below, and looked not much on these things, but lifted up their eyes to Heaven their dearest country, where God hath prepared for them a city (Hebrews 11:16), and therein quieted their spirits.”Flash forward.
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