Tonight I will share some Thanksgiving thoughts from some of my previous posts.

The first is from my post Thanksgiving Poems and is a traditional poem that reminds me of the day of Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving

At the table ere we sit,

we must never Grace omit;

But, for all the good things here,

Thank our Heavenly Father dear.

So, a little child, I pray,

When we work or when we play,

Blessings on this day begun

For ourselves and every one:

Amen.

Pauline Camp

Next is an interesting clipping that I found in one of my Grandma’s Scrapbooks and shared in my post Thanksgiving Prayer.

A Farmer’s Prayer for Thanksgiving

Lord of harvests, Keeper of our feedlots and orchards, we thank thee for a turkey that is fat.

We thank thee for bread with butter on it.

Would we could set music to the glorious autumn song of praise that rises from these frosted, browning stalks of corn, bent with ears of gold. Accept the fragrance of red clover in yon mow as burnt incense rising from the holy earthen alter of this stock-farm.

Help us to be humble, just, and kind as thy servant said — especially kind to those creatures over whom thou gave us original dominion, which we have subdued and fattened and multiplied and milked according to thy direction.

Make us good shepherds to them as thou art the Good Shepherd to us.

Bless all thine own children about this board or absent from it.

And make our hearts big enough to receive thy bounty in constant Thanksgiving.

Amen

I am also thinking about the Mayflower and the Mayflower Compact. Below is an excerpt from my post on The Mayflower Compact.

Here is a rendering in modern English of the Mayflower Compact.

In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, defender of the Faith, etc.

Having undertaken, for the Glory of God, and advancements of the Christian faith and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic; for our better ordering, and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.

In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape Cod the 11th of November, in the year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, 1620.

The Mayflower Compact was signed by 41 of the passengers of the Mayflower including my ancestor George Soule. See: Mayflower Ancestry

I am also thinking about the 1623 Thanksgiving feast. The date caption in the picture is wrong as the 1623 feast took place in July and not in the fall. However, the caption at the bottom is very important. There had been a major change in how the colony was set up and the colonists now had land of their own to work in addition to their commitments to each other.

Back in 2014 I wrote a post titled Were the Pilgrims Puritans?

In the post I looked at two important points.

First, when were the colonists at Plymouth first called Pilgrims? I think you would be surprised at the date. They were at the time referred to as Brownists or Separatists.

Second, would they have been referred to as Puritans?

The Brownists would definitely not have been referred to as Puritans at the time of the voyage of the Mayflower. They were definitely Separatists and through the years had many conflicts with the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony over religious beliefs.

For more details visit the post.

There is a lot to think about at this time of year. Especially as people today try to minimize the original intent of Thanksgiving.

Are you ready for Thanksgiving?

What are you thankful for this year?

Steven