Thanksgiving

I continue to look on Thanksgiving as a simple harvest festival, rather than pretending to celebrate something connected with a group of people whose attitudes I consider odious. I'll feel thankful for all that Mother Nature offers us, every day, in spite of our careless mistreatment of her.

The Puritans who travelled, under great difficulty, to these shores from my own old homeland, England, were not a set of people I'd feel comfortable with. I pity the Native tribes who first encountered them. The English Puritans were religious fundamentalists of the worst sort. They disagreed with the rituals of the Church of England , and were victims of bigotry themselves, in their own homeland. But as abuse begets abuse, so bigotry begets bigotry, and they became, if possible even worse bigots than their abusers.