Valerie Sudol - on the first Thanksgiving and what it teaches 21st Century Americans (Obama era)

[D]raw strength from the original Thanksgiving, which celebrated triumphant survival over terrible hardship!

Too many of us have suffered reversals of fortune in the latest round of economic turmoil and seen jobs, homes and savings go up in smoke or down the drain. The new world order of terrorism alerts, uncivil politics, and diminished expectations can weigh heavily on the soul. But not today.
Today let's celebrate endurance and remember that the best things in life aren't things. Today let's remember that, as the Roman philosopher Seneca once wrote, "Nothing is more honorable than a grateful heart."
We tend to romanticize the tale of Pilgrim settlers and American natives, raising toasts to good fellowship at a groaning board in the New World wilderness. But the Pilgrims of history weren't as we picture them in their Sunday best of frock coats, buckled shoes and frilled bonnets, apple-cheeked and prosperous.
They had set out in 1620 on a perilous venture from which there was no turning back. By spring of the following year, the original band of 102 Pilgrim pioneers had been reduced by illness and hardship to 56, according to Jean Craighead George in her book The First Thanksgiving. Surrounded by the land's native people, whose intent they could not know, they buried their dead by night so the tribes wouldn't realize how quickly their numbers were dwindling.
The Pilgrims' salvation, George says, was a member of the Wampanoag nation named Squanto who took pity on these pale strangers and taught them to live on this new land. He schooled them in which plants were poisonous and which beneficial, taught them how to tap maple sap for syrup, how to hunt and how to fish. These were lessons on which their very lives depended.
When the harvest of 1621 was fruitful, it was natural that the ragged settlers and their native benefactors should gather in a feast of New World plenty - lobster and goose, turkey and venison, duck and pumpkin, fruit and corn. These Pilgrims, sorely tested, gave thanks for a hard-won survival and the help of friends.
I don't believe they could have counted their blessings without thinking of the trials just endured, the terrors of their strange new land and the loss of their dearest comrades. They lived bravely in the face of danger and found reason to be grateful -- and there is perhaps their greatest legacy, a thought to keep.
As the Pilgrims learned, this land is a place to be prized and held dear. That we are here at all by birth or choice on this most American of holidays is by itself a boon. Today, in a vast modern nation, we live in a favored land, confident of its ability to provide.
This is no hard place made only of rock and snow, harsh sands and scarce water or unforgiving, infertile soil. We are blessed by our geography in a land temperate, fertile and generous and today enjoy the fruits of farm fields, orchards, bogs and pastures that are the envy of impoverished places around the world.
Let's be grateful for all the hands that toiled to prepare our annual harvest feast! That includes not just the cooks, basting the turkey and baking the pies, but the unseen many that raked the cranberries, raised the corn, dug the potatoes and picked the apples.
This humble work deserves our praise and the kindness of Mother Nature, our thanks, now as ever.
Like the Pilgrims, we make our way with stubborn effort despite our losses. Outside our doors, peril and uncertainty still haunt us.
But in our homes, among family and friends, warm and fed, we shelter our own small worlds made of love and laughter. Could anything be more important than the bonds we form in the lives we live? It is these and not our possessions that make us rich.
If the cold winds blow and the fears of the future batter at the windows, today let's shut them out and think of all we have, not what we feel is lacking. Chances are courage will see us through -- it's what the real Pilgrims brought to the table.