Mark Your Calendars
(events are located at the church, unless listed
otherwise)
Transgender Day of Remembrance - Nov 20 @ 7pm, contact Lauren Danley/see Upcoming Events
Discovering Everyday Spirituality - Nov 23 @ 9:15 am
Thanksgiving Potluck -- Nov 23 after the service
CIHN rotation - November 23-30
A UU Holiday Party--Dec 7, call Mike Shonsey or Kathy Jenkins for more information (see Upcoming Events)
Holiday Gift Market -- Dec 12, 13, 14 --see Upcoming Events for times
Holiday Pageant - Dec 14
Dinner at/for COMEA Shelter--Dec 20 @ 5:30pm
From Our Minister
When and where did the First Thanksgiving take place? Why that's an easy question. Every school child knows that the year was 1621 and the place was the Plymouth Plantation in what is now the state of Massachusetts. Now I am a Texan, as you all know. So if you were to ask me when and where did the First Thanksgiving take place, I'd invite you to travel down state highway #217 just outside Canyon, Texas. There you will see a highway marker that reads Feast of the First Thanksgiving -1541, Proclaimed byPadre Fray Juan De Padilla for Coronado and his troops in Palo Duro Canyon 79 years before the Pilgrims. But Texans are not the only ones who try to claim the bragging rights to the site of the First Thanksgiving. Half a century before the Pilgrims landed in Plymouth a group of French Huguenots,that is French Protestants, established a settlement near present day Jacksonville, Florida. On June 30, 1564 their leader wrote: "We sang a psalm of Thanksgiving to God, beseeching Him that it would please Him to continued His accustomed goodness towards us." In spite of their prayers, the fledgling colony was wiped out by the Spanish two years later. But Floridians make the claim that French Protestants were the first to establish the thanksgiving custom long before the British Pilgrims landed.
Likewise, the descendents of both Jamestown and the Berkeley Plantation in Virginia claim the honor of having ancestors who were the first Europeans to host thanksgiving meals in the New World, events that were said to have taken place in 1610 and 1619 respectively. So strictly speaking, the very first Thanksgiving dinner, as we think of it, that took place on these shores might not have taken place in Plymouth 1621.
Not to mention the fact that Native Americans having arrived in North America some 40,000 years before the Europeans can make the claim that they had been hosting elaborate meals to celebrate the good harvest long before white men and women so much as set foot their shores. The descendents of the Wampanoag tribe of Massachusetts might well brag that it was their ancestors, not the white men and women of the Plymouth Plantation, who were truly responsible for that First Thanksgiving. Had the Native Americans not taught the Pilgrims how to plant and cultivate New World crops, all of the Europeans might have starved to death during their first year in the New World.
Whether your ancestors came here on the Mayflower, or your ancestors met the boat, the need to take time to make an expression of gratitude for the blessings of food, family, friends, health, home, and life itself is universal. Much of Thanksgiving Day as we know it, is as much a part of American myth as it is history. But there is nothing "made up" about the feelings we have when we sit down to the table surrounded by friends and family. The ways we celebrate are as different as we are, the reasons why we celebrate are much the same. I am thankful that I am your minister and that a church like ours exists. I wish you and your loved ones a blessed Thanksgiving Day.
Love and peace, Suzanne
P.S. Don't forget to vote on Nov. 4.