"T H A N K S G I V I N G A N D T R U T H"
I have to admit that there is truly something drives me from within, to thirst after truth and understanding. I don't know if this is something unique within myself, or maybe everyone experiences this and the only difference is the way it manifests itself each of us. For me, it intensifies without provocation and sometimes it's something that I read, hear or learn that leaves me feeling like there is something being withheld from my understanding and it puts my gears into drive. When I have attained enough of the right information to calm those curiosities, that feeling subsides, and if there is more that I need to learn, it remains.
None the less, THANKSGIVING really is a jem of a day that I am so thankful to have on our calander. I'm sure many of you would agree that you are thankful daily and offer that thanks in your own ways. You probably would also agree that it doesn't change things for you just because we have this holiday to focus on that gratitude. However, if we didnt have it, things would be different.
I am really thankful for the change in pace, thinking, feelings and thoughts that the celebration of Thanksgiving provides. The focus that returns to the home and the family. To our health, our faith and homes.
Having said that, I complete a means of addmission and awareness.
Last but least I admitt to myself this truth that I haven't written on my blog for sometime. Why, because Life has been so hard, and so busy, so full, so empty, so "LIFE"(generally speaking), ...yet it has also been a bless-ed one. My internalizing so many thoughts and feelings over this time, that even my journal has taken a severe blow. I may have needed that fast, I may need a little more but I do feel a shift inside that needed time to grow. I will nurture this and continue, in thanks to move forward and remain as always, at the end of every day, GRATEFUL, GRATEFUL, GRATEFUL!
By: Maria Jeffrey | November 24, 2016
As we celebrate Thanksgiving today, you may think that the gathering of family and friends over a feast has its roots with the Thanksgiving the pilgrims celebrated in Massachusetts in 1621. But there are other historical claims to the first Thanksgiving in America. Here’s one such story you might not know:
When Captain John Woodlief and 35 settlers landed on the banks of the James River in Virginia on Dec. 4, 1619, they got to their knees and prayed: “We ordain that this day of our ships arrival, at the place assigned for plantacon [sic], in the land of Virginia, shall be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God.”
Before setting sail from England, Captain Woodlief had been instructed by his employers at the Berkeley Company to say a prayer of thanksgiving upon safe arrival and to establish a yearly tradition of doing so.
Thanksgiving: An open call to prayer
Over a year later, the Plymouth pilgrims celebrated the iconic harvest festival in Massachusetts. It was an impromptu event, and wasn’t intended to be a yearly affair like the Berkeley Thanksgiving. But for decades, American children have been taught that we celebrate Thanksgiving in the tradition of the Plymouth pilgrims in Massachusetts. Barely anyone is aware of the Virginia claim to the first Thanksgiving.
Why?
In 1962, President John F. Kennedy issued a Thanksgiving proclamation, specifically crediting the Massachusetts pilgrims: “Over three centuries ago in Plymouth, on Massachusetts Bay, the Pilgrims established the custom of gathering together each year to express their gratitude to God for the preservation of their community and for the harvests their labors brought forth in the new land. Thanksgiving Day has ever since been part of the fabric which has united Americans with their past, with each other and with the future of all mankind.”
A Virginia state Senator, John J. Wicker, noticed the nod to the Massachusetts settlers and notified President Kennedy of the Virginia claim to the first Thanksgiving:
“Your Presidential Proclamation erroneously credits Massachusetts Pilgrims with America’s First Thanksgiving observance. As we demonstrated a year ago to the Governor of Massachusetts by original historical records of the Congressional Library, America’s First Thanksgiving was actually celebrated in Virginia in 1619 more than a year before the Pilgrims ever landed. And nearly two years before the Massachusetts Thanksgiving. Virginia’s claim was officially recognized by President Abraham Lincoln nearly a century ago and further substantiated by historian Dabney’s comprehensive article in the November 29, 1958 Saturday Evening Post. As a matter of fairness, please issue an appropriate correction.”
The famed historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., working in the White House at the time as a close aide to President Kennedy, replied to Senator Wicker:
“The President has asked me to reply to your telegram about the Thanksgiving Proclamation statement. You are quite right, and I can only plead an unconquerable New England bias on the part of the White House staff. We are all grateful to you for reminding us of the Berkeley Hundred Thanksgiving: and I can assure you that the error will not be repeated in the future.”
To JFK’s credit, his Thanksgiving Proclamation in 1963 included the Virginia claim to the first Thanksgiving. But what was said was said, and that bell could not be un-rung. The Mayflower story quickly became one of the foundational American tales that all children learn and never forget.
Except on the James River. Graham Woodlief, a direct descendent of Captain Woodlief, has made sure the memory of the Berkeley Company’s Thanksgiving stays alive at Berkeley Plantation in central Virginia: every year since 1958, the Virginia Thanksgiving Festival is held on the first Sunday of November to commemorate Captain John Woodlief’s historical contribution to celebrating Thanksgiving in America.
Good ship Margaret
So does it ever bother Woodlief that most Americans are unaware of the Margaret and historical significance of Charles City, Va.?
“The Virginia Thanksgiving Festival organization’s mission is to ‘set the record straight’ and educate people, including children, about this historic event,” Woodlief told Conservative Review.
He said that this year, the Virginia Thanksgiving Festival also worked with Central Virginia Public Broadcasting to produce a documentary. It was picked up by 199 PBS stations across the country and will reach 216 million American homes over Thanksgiving this year. Woodlief said they hope to get the documentary in the education system as well.
“If we continue to do these things, perhaps we can change the perception of where the first Thanksgiving really occurred,” Graham Woodlief stated.
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