Call to Worship
We gather this morning in the spirit of Thanksgiving:
We give thanks for the fellowship we share,
For the heritage of freedom we claim,
For beauty of earth and sky, and of human creations,
For love, given and received.
Let us make our thanks for these blessings known in our speaking and singing,
and in the warmth of our companionship.
Come all people,
for there is space enough to hold you,
time enough to enfold you,
and love enough to share.
Here is a safe harbor on your journeys.
Prayer, Meditation – “Giving Thanks”
A Native American Good Morning Message by Chief Jake Swamp
Rev. Gelbein’s family were the Readers for this Native American prayer.
The following words are based on the Thanksgiving Address, an ancient message of peace and appreciation for Mother Earth and all her inhabitants. It served as a prayer for the Native people known as the Iroquois or Six Nations – Mohawk, Oneida, Cayuga, Onondaga, Seneca, and Tuscarora.
To be a human being is an honor, and we offer thanksgiving for all the gifts of life.
Mother Earth, we thank you for giving us everything we need.
Thank you, deep blue waters around Mother Earth, for you are the force that takes thirst away from all living things.
We give thanks to green grasses that feel so good against our bare feet, for the cool beauty your bring to Mother Earth’s floor.
Thank you, good foods from Mother Earth, our life sustainers, for making us happy when we are hungry.
Fruits and berries, we thank you for your color and sweetness. We are all thankful to good medicine herbs, for healing us when we are sick.
Thank you for the animals in the world, for keeping our precious forests clean.
All the trees in the world, we are thankful for the shade and warmth you give us.
Thank you, all the birds in the world, for singing your beautiful songs for all to enjoy.
We give thanks to you, gentle Four Winds, for bringing clean air for us to breathe from the four directions.
Thank you, Grandfather Thunder Beings, for bringing rains to help all living things grow.
Elder Brother Sun, we send thanks for shining your light and warming Mother Earth.
Thank you, Grandmother Moon, for growing full every month to light the darkness for children and sparkling waters.
We give you thanks, twinkling stars, for making the night sky so beautiful and for sprinkling morning dew drops on the plants.
Spirit Protectors of our past and present, we thank you for showing us ways to live in peace and harmony with one another.
And most of all, thank you, Great Spirit, for giving us all these wonderful gifts, so we will be happy and healthy every day and every night.
Reading - “The First Thanksgiving Feast”
by Joan Anderson, adapted by Rev. Joan Gelbein
Narrator: In September of 1620, a sturdy ship called the Mayflower left Plymouth, England. Half of the 102 passengers on board were “Separatists,” so-called because they had broken away from the national Church of England to worship in their own way. The others were members of the Church of England who were looking for greater economic opportunity in the New World.
The Separatists called themselves “Saints” and referred to the others as “Strangers.” Despite their differences, the Saints and Strangers began a small settlement in December at a place called Plymouth.
During the first winter and spring, half the original settlers died. But the survivors, with the help of their Indian neighbors, managed to plant crops and reap a good harvest.
Narrator 2:The days were getting shorter. Cape Cod Bay was sending cool, crisp breezes into the tiny new village of Plymouth that lay upon its shore. The year was 1621, and the Pilgrims had just gathered in their first harvest. Over a year had passed since these Pilgrims had sailed away from their homeland.
Governor William Bradford and his assistants, Edward Winslow and Stephen Hopkins, were meeting to discuss village matters.
Edward Winslow: ?Tis harvest time in England now. The farmers there will have stored all their crops. Soon the Harvest Home festival will begin.
Stephen Hopkins: Yes, indeed! Would it not be a fine idea to have a merry festival here as well? What do you think, Governor?
Governor Bradford: The Lord has been good to us. Do you not think we should have a day of prayer and thanksgiving instead?”
Winslow: You mean a day of giving thanks instead of a festival?
Gov. Bradford: Perhaps.
Hopkins: Oh, no, sir. Winslow and I do favor a feast. We spend no time making merry. Feasting and recreation would be good for our village spirit.
Gov. Bradford: You are right! Our villagers have reason enough for a joyous celebration. Now that we have gathered a good harvest, we feel more confident that we can survive in this new land.
Narrator 2: We hear now from Susannah Winslow, wife of Edward Winslow, mother of two, and one of the so-called “Saints.”
Susannah Winslow: ?Twas not so pleasant spending sixty-six days aboard that tiny ship, the Mayflower. ?Twas most comforting that God gave us once again the sight of land. How grateful we were when we set foot on solid ground.”
Isaac Allerton: My name is Isaac Allerton. I’m a widower, father of two, and one of the “Saints.” I was most fearful because of tales about the ill feelings the Indians did have for the white man. The area was said to be heavily populated with Indians. But I and other members of our search party found no one to fear.
Peter Browne: I am Peter Browne. Unmarried. A “Stranger.” Thanks be to God that we found fields already cleared for planting. Imagine the hours of labor it would have taken to cut down trees and carry away rocks. We would not have been able to plant a single seed until late summer, and that would have done us hardly any good. Cleared fields assured us of a goodly harvest.
Elizabeth Hopkins: I am Elizabeth Hopkins, wife of Stephen Hopkins, mother of four, and one of the “Strangers.” Praise, God, my family is alive and did survive the general sickness. When my dear husband fell ill, I almost gave up all hope. Some days, there were but one or two to care for the others. But God in his infinite love took only half our people. He left the rest of us as instruments for his work in New England.
Myles Standish: Myles Standish is my name. I am unmarried, and one of the “Strangers.” I will never forget that cold March day when the Indian named Samoset suddenly appeared in our street. We were taken by surprise, but he greeted us with, “Welcome, welcome, Englishmen.” We invited him to stay the night, and we finally learned why there were cleared, unclaimed fields. The Indians who did live here had died in a plague. Our fear of Indians did diminish that very night.
Mary Brewster: My name is Mary Brewster, the wife of William Brewster, and mother of two. I am definitely a “Saint!” I was most joyous to meet Samoset’s friend, Squanto, who in April did give us a lesson in planting corn. Good thing, too, because our English pease and wheat did not grow well in the hot sunshine. First Squanto dug a hole, into which he placed two or three herring to give food to the soil. Then he filled in the hole, placed four kernels of corn on top, and formed a little hill of soil over them. Now we have a wonderful corn harvest.
Gov. Bradford: I am Governor Bradford, widower, and Saint. Praise be to God that we made a treaty of peace with the Indians. ?Twas only a few days after Samoset’s visit that he brought back Squanto and Massasoit, chief of the great Wampanoag nation. How good that after some talk and socializing with the Indians, John Carver, our first Governor, did put quill to paper and sign an agreement of amity and good faith. Massasoit’s nation does control many tribes beyond our plantation. Now Plymouth can feel safe living with these neighboring people.
Narrator 2: Governor Braford decided the English folks of Plymouth were most deserving of a good English-style Harvest Home celebration. He said to prepare for a goodly feast, and that an invitation would be extended to their Native friends. Some were sent “on fowling” and returned with turkey, duck, and geese. Some were sent to catch a goodly amount of cod and bass and perhaps an eel or two.
Narrator 3: The clay oven was prepared for baking and the loaves were kneaded. Baskets filled with herbs and vegetables were delivered to the households. Barrels were rolled out to hold plank tops, and the tops were covered with fine English linen cloths.
Narrator 2: On the day the feast began, an unexpectedly large number of Indians arrived. There were 90, led by Massasoit. The women added more meat to the pots and put more bread to the oven. Pilgrims and Indians alike gathered near the tables.
Narrator 2: Everyone was more than ready to eat, so the Governor announced a time for prayer.
Gov. Bradford: Lord God Jehovah, come before us as we ask thy blessings. Thy hand has watchfully brought us to this land and given us amity with the Natives that live herein. We do give solemn thanks and praises to thy name. Amen.
Narrator 4: The eating began, and went on and on and on. The Indians experienced new tastes and dishes. Then it was time for general recreation.
Narrator 3: To the sound of a pipe and drum, a group of women began a jigging match. Later, there was singing and the women performed a formal English dance.
Narrator 2: The Indians watched all the activities, then planned an exhibition of their own. They formed a line behind Massasoit and performed a dance while chanting. The Pilgrims looked on in awe while shadows began to lengthen and the afternoon grew late. The celebration went on for three full days.
Narrator: There is another side to the American Thanksgiving. At the start of the Plymouth Plantation’s existence, the Pilgrims got along well with the Indians they met, but there was increasing friction between the settlers and the Indians of later generations. Some Wampanoags and members of other tribes gather annually on Thanksgiving Day at Plymouth Rock for a ceremony in which they declare a National Day of Mourning. Today, Native American people believe the First Thanksgiving Feast marked the beginning of the end of their original way of life.
But back then, for the Pilgrims, it was the joy of having found a safe harbor.
Sermon: “Safe Harbor” – Rev. Joan Gelbein
What was it that would make this small band of people travel to a barely known and far-off land, over an unpredictable ocean path, risking their lives, unsure of their future? For some of the English Separatists, who, in 1609, had already left their homes for Holland, it was a search for religious freedom.
Separatists, as the name implies, had no use for the established church, and chose to remove themselves entirely from its membership.
When King James I ascended to the throne in 1603, there was increased persecution of Separatist congregations. He resoundingly declared, “I will make them conform, or I will harry them out of the land!”
Such was the situation faced by the small congregation of which William Bradford was a member.
William Bradford joined the newly organized separate Congregational Church in 1606 in England at the age of 19. From that date until his death half a century later, Bradford’s life revolved around that of his congregation, first in England, then in Holland, and finally in New England.
William Bradford, along with 44 of his congregation, sailed on the Mayflower, and in 1621, just turned thirty-one, he was chosen as the Governor of Plymouth Colony. From that time, until his death in 1656, he was one of the principal leaders of the Pilgrims.
He also was their historian, writing about the Pilgrim’s experience, in his book, “Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620 – 1647.”
He tells of the Mayflower finally siting land in November of 1620. It was to be more than a month until they found a home. A landing party first scouted out a location that turned out to be unfit. They happened upon dangerous shoals and were lucky to get clear of them. The Mayflower’s rudder and then its mast broke in bad weather. But, then, they came to Plymouth Harbor. Bradford describes this successful turn of events:
“On Monday they sounded the harbor and found it fit for shipping, and marched into the land and found divers cornfields and little running brooks, a place (as they supposed) fit for situation. At least it was the best they could find, and the season and their present necessity made them glad to accept it. So they returned to their ship again with this news to the rest of their people, which did much comfort their hearts.
“On the 15th of December they weighed anchor to go to the place they had discovered, and came within two leagues of it, but were fain to bear up again; but the 16th day, the wind came fair ….”On Saturday, December 16, 1620, they “came safely into a safe harbor,” as Bradford wrote. It was 3 months and 10 days after leaving “Old Plymouth” on the shores of England.
There have been many sentimentalized pictures created by artists through the years, of that fateful landing. This landing scene of the Pilgrims stepping onto Plymouth Rock, became the icon of America’s origin myth. Although English settlers landed in Jamestown, Virginia earlier, in 1607, still the Pilgrims’ landing stirred us as the more significant story to base a country on. Those pious and dignified ancestors, who came only to escape religious intolerance, would set the stage for our land of the free and home of the brave.
New England’s origin myth sprang from an amalgam of the Plymouth story with the more extensive history of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. For instance, on the eve of the American Revolution, residents of Plymouth turned the Pilgrims’ exile from England into the perfect metaphor for American Independence.
The Pilgrims laid the foundation of Civil Freedom that formed the nucleus of future U. S. law and education. They sought to establish their own educational system free from any taint of Anglican interference. And, some say the Mayflower Compact, prepared and signed by the “Saints” while aboard the Mayflower, prior to their landing and settlement, paved the way for the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Plymouth, with its famous boulder, has gone from being simply a safe harbor, to being, now, “holy ground.”
Although the Harvest Festival celebrated by the Pilgrims with their Indian (so-called at that time) neighbors, took place a year after the landing in Plymouth, it has become a major American holiday signifying our beginnings as a nation. Within this story we find embodied the values of religious freedom and tolerance that our country came to be built on. Mythical Plymouth shines as a harmonious utopia populated by high-principled individuals working together to produce a perfect society.
Thanksgiving is a time to rest in abundance, and gratitude for that abundance. In many ways, and through many years, America has become a safe harbor for those seeking freedom, democracy, and the chance for a better life. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free…”
We fail. We sometimes we fail badly to make this nation work according to its ideals and principles. But sometimes we succeed, and succeed well. The Pilgrim myth, with its safe harbor from oppression, and its ebullient feast celebrating a good harvest through interdependence, is probably still a vision of ourselves that is worth having.
It seems that pretty much every year I think about this Holiday a little differently. This year, I became very curious about the Pilgrims, their journey, their settlement – what was it like … who were the people…? I wondered about the First Thanksgiving Feast, what life was like then beyond the cozy story taught to me in elementary school. I wanted more details about how it all went so bad with the Native Americans.
But, of course, all of this would be too much for just this one little sermon! Ah! So much sermon material, so little time!!
Ray and I were meeting one day a while back, talking about music for up-coming services, and themes. However the conversation led into it, we both were attracted by the idea of “Safe Harbor.”
That day in December of 1620, must have brought the deepest dimensions of “safe harbor” to those Saints who had such strong religious faith in providence. What great joy and gratitude they must have felt, at that moment in time, after having come so far, at such cost, and with such a long-held vision of freedom. Their first year was very hard, so it could not have been until the First Thanksgiving Feast that they would be able to celebrate what they had done.
Ray and I also heard the words, “Safe Harbor” as a wider metaphor for our finding, often, within an indifferent or intrusive world, a space in which we can feel secure, cared for, and respected; a place to be ourselves and to be cherished for who we are.
The Pilgrims sought out a distant safe harbor to establish their identity and their beliefs as protected and recognized. And within that safe harbor, they found an expression of thanksgiving.
Perhaps the metaphor of looking for and finding a safe harbor in our lives is a profound aspect of this holiday story that can speak to us.
Like the Pilgrims, in order to change a pattern of living that has become uncomfortable, suffocating, destructive, we must welcome risk into our hearts, and choose an essentially unknown journey towards our inner vision of a safe harbor.
Like the Pilgrims, we may have some idea of a direction, but once we have embarked on the journey, what happens is chance, synchronicity, grace. We put ourselves into the wind, and feel its powerful will upon our control at the helm.
I remember coming here, to my new ministry with you, in December of 1988. Abe and I drove across from Wichita, Kansas, where we had been living. When we arrived in Virginia, it was cold and wet and foggy, all the defining edges of things were unclear: a metaphor for my situation.
The church had hooked me up with Sandy Augliere, one of our members, a real estate agent who would help us find a place to live. Within a couple of weeks, we purchased a condo which would be available to us at the end of February. Happily, Sandy and her husband, Vin, offered to let me live in their home for two months while they were away in Spain. Abe drove back to Wichita, I camped out on Lake Barcroft, and entered the New World of the Unitarian Church of Arlington.
All this time, as you might imagine, I felt quite unsettled to say the least. I wasn’t at all used to the prospect of living without Abe. I’d come a long journey, particularly if you count having gone from a long-established home in New York and New Jersey to a two-and-a-half year fish-out-of-water stay in Kansas, to unknown Virginia and a significant career move.
To compound the feelings, when I arrived in church on January 2, 1989, I found I had no office to call my own. With all the flurry of candidating week in early December and the vote to call another minister (It was the first time the church would have two settled ministers.) -- and the holidays -- it turned out that setting aside an office for the new minister was the only detail out of so many, that had been somehow forgotten.
But not for long. There was a decision to divide the larger meeting room in the Reeb Education Building, where our offices had been. I remember Chris Gregory supervised the construction. I got to pick the paint color for the walls – it was a warm blush white, named “Eternity.” After I moved my stuff into my new office, I was ready to sit back at my desk and stare out into eternity! My ministry had begun!
I had made the move. I had crossed the divide. I had taken a big risk on my path to personal and professional growth, and it was scary, and it was good! I know better now how good it had been, but that took another twelve years of amazement at the profound synchronicity of things, learning faith in the process of living, feeling grateful for opportunities and relationships, and applauding myself from time to time for my own courage to keep going. I had to break from my past to be ready for my future. I had to become clear about what I wanted and be willing to pursue it. I made a literal journey, but it was a mythic journey as well. It can happen within as much as it may be external. It is not easy to be a Pilgrim.
Life can feel like a balancing act; one between security and risk. There can be no harvest without plowing the field and tending it. There can be no safe harbor without the difficult journey.
Like the Pilgrims, the safe harbors we eventually find are never quite the exact ones we were seeking. They will surprise and challenge and reward. They will be rich with new landscapes, unexpected smells, and small treasures.
…..as in this story:
One night, I did leave the house and walked for hours, wishing to disencumber myself. But my bones failed me and the lights of an all-night diner were irresistible. I entered the steamy, greasy warmth, felt the meat smell cling to my clothing. I sat down at the counter and picked up a matchbox. On it was printed ACE 24-HOUR CAFÉ – WHERE NICE PEOPLE MEET. And tears came to my eyes for the hopefulness, the sweetness, the enduring promise of plain human love. …
The waitress looked at me, an old man with a night’s growth of gray-green beard. My eyes, I knew, were feverish, the mad eyes she must have gotten used to on the late-night shift. She said, “How about another cup of coffee, dear?” I smiled and thanked her.
Safe Harbor is a gift. Be it received or given; be it sought, or stumbled upon. It lies sleeping in your heart, whether you go a thousand miles on pilgrimage, or walk down the block. The surviving and striving of our own inner journeys take us deep and wide on the landscape of life. We know when we have come home.
The Pilgrims had to leave what had been home because there they weren’t listened to, or respected, or cherished; quite the opposite. This Thanksgiving, we can begin to practice the listening, the respect, the cherishing that will provide at least one other person with Safe Harbor. We can give this gift to some one we know, or to a stranger. We can receive this gift from someone we know, or from a stranger.
When someone deeply listens to you
It is like holding out a dented cup
You’ve had since childhood
And watching it fill up with
Cold, fresh water.
When it balances on top of the brim,
You are understood.
When it overflows and touches your skin
You are loved.
When someone deeply listens to you,
The room where you stay
Starts a new life
And the place where you wrote
Your first poem
Begins to glow in your mind’s eye.
It is as if gold has been discovered!
When someone deeply listens to you,
Your bare feet are on the earth
And a beloved land that seemed distant
Is now at home within you.
May we all find that beloved home that seemed distant, now at home within us.
