The day before Thanksgiving and these truly are thoughts and words from my heart.
When I was an idealistic, naive child I believed all things adults told me. I was eleven years old, just started wearing a bra, when I discovered there was no Santa Claus. Yep, I was devastated, like a kick in my gut.
Even earlier, I was probably around seven, I lost a beautiful necklace someone gave me as a precious gift. I cried and cried. I'm not sure how long later, but I remember it was a bright sunny day. My mother called me into our kitchen, looked out the back door and said, "Peggy! Look! I see something shiny in the grass, go see what it is." Full of curiosity and wonder I walked out the door, down a step, and into the middle of the yard, guided by the small sparkling shine of the small object lying beautifully in the grass. It was my necklace.
Clearly I was ecststic. I looked at my mother who was closely watching, her face full of joy, and I exclaimed, "Mommy!!! It's my necklace!!"
" Peggy, it's a miracle!"
In my little mind, it was!!!
Those two stories are exactly how we are led to believe a lot of things that just aren't true. IS there a real Santa? You tell me! Was it a "miracle" that my necklace was found? Or did my mother buy me a new one and carefully plant it in the yard to help her sad little girl smile again?
As humans, we all want to have a happy ending. We all want to spin or twist the truth so we can feel better; have a happy ending. Yet when will we learn that the truth always comes out?
The myth or fairy tale surrounding Thanksgiving is not an exception to the lies we are sometimes taught by well meaning people. No one wants to believe that the things, people, communities and cultures we are a part of have a history of slaughtering people and basically stealing what was once theirs. But that's what the Brits of the 1620's did when they claimed this land as their own. Yet here we are, celebrating their crime, acting as if the white man , yet again, is innocent.
Instead of being thankful for this land, which really isn't ours, I use this month to ponder and intentionally think about what I have to be grateful for. The list is long and sincere. But I'm going to call a wrap on this blog and send you all good wishes and love.
As historian David Silverman who wrote the book, This Land Is Their Land states in an interview:
"... the "myth is that friendly Indians, unidentified by tribe, welcome the Pilgrims to America, teach them how to live in this new place, sit down to dinner with them and then disappear…It’s bloodless and in many ways an extension of the ideology of Manifest Destiny.”
This relationship between Wampanoags and English settlers rapidly deteriorated, culminating just decades later in one of the most brutal conflicts in colonial history: King Philip’s War."
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