William and Mary Brewster are my great x 12 grandparents. While doing research for the two historical novels I wrote with them as the main characters, I spent as much time in the 16th and 17th centuries as I did in the 21st one. The more I learned about them the more I concluded they were truly an amazing couple. Now both Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures and Mary Brewster’s Love Life: Matriarch of the Mayflower are published and available in print and eBook formats. Mayflower Chronicles is also available in audiobook format.  

I am in awe of the Brewsters and the others who made the dangerous journeys from their peaceful Scrooby village in Northern England to Leiden, and on to the Mayflower.

Most people pick up the Pilgrim story with the arrival of the Mayflower in Cape Cod in 1620 and drop the story after what is widely claimed to be the first Thanksgiving. The story starts much earlier than 1620 and has repercussions that are still unfolding today. In recent years the descendants of those whose land and way of life were devastated by the arrival of thousands of Europeans have been more organized and vocal in telling us the rest of the story. We need to listen. However, for this blog, let me introduce you to this remarkable couple.

William at Peterhouse, Cambridge University

William was the only Mayflower passenger with any college education. He studied briefly at Peterhouse in Cambridge University but did not graduate. Historians do not know why, but I suspect he returned home to help his father as his mother was nearing the end of her life.

William and Mary married at St. James (Later renamed St. Wilfred) in Scrooby. We do not know with any certainty which family Mary comes from; though genealogists and historians have been trying to figure that out for years. One popular theory (it is only a theory) is that she was the daughter of Thomas Wentworth, who was the Bailiff and Postmaster at Scrooby until his death.

William’s father assumed that position after Thomas Wentworth died. When the senior William Brewster died, our Pilgrim William Brewster, Jr. assumed the role.

Before taking over his father’s role at Scrooby Manor, young William was a secretary or administrative assistant to William Davison, who was in diplomatic service to Queen Elizabeth I. She appointed him to her Privy Council. He served Her Majesty as Ambassador to the Netherlands and was named her Secretary of State. Pilgrim Brewster accompanied Davison on many of his court visits trips to the Netherlands on her behalf.

Mother Mary Brewster

William and Mary had five children, and one stillborn infant. Jonathan, Patience, and Fear were born while they lived in Scrooby. Fear’s rather unusual name is based on their commitment to rely on their fear of the Lord rather than the dictates of the Established Church. By the time Fear was born, her parents were deeply involved in the highly controversial Separatist movement. The term ‘fear’ does not mean to be afraid, though their defiance of the Established Church was certainly cause for fear. Rather the term means to be in awe or wonder at the mysterious ways in which God provides.

Two more sons were born after they emigrated to Leiden in Holland. Love was so named because the Separatists in Leiden felt such close kinship with one another they were as one large extended family. Wrestling’s name may be because when he was born, the Leiden community was contemplating migrating to the New World. Such a move was obviously very bold and precarious. They wrestled with the possibility for several years before committing to take their chances.

William the Underground Printer

The decision to take their chances in the New World was solidified when Dutch authorities, under directives from King James, confiscated Brewster’s printing business. Like Martin Luther a century earlier, Brewster printed pamphlets and books that criticized the Established Church. Others smuggled them back to England. Authorities eventually traced them to Brewster’s garret workshop on the top floor of his home in Leiden.

To avoid arrest, William hid for most of the year before the families going to the New World boarded the ship for the voyage. The majority of the passengers were strangers to their close-knit congregational friends. They referred to them as Strangers. The Adventurers, businessmen who financed the trip, insisted they join the Leiden folks. Given their extreme devotion to their religious convictions, they were sometimes called the Saints. Together they made up the English settlers who established Plimoth Plantation on the site of a deserted native village Patuxet along Cape Cod Bay.

Mary said goodbye to her three older children – Jonathan, Patience, and Fear – when she left Holland. She traveled to Southampton with her two younger sons to meet up with William and the other settlers. She and William were eventually reunited with three older children – Jonathan a year later; and the daughters two years later. By the 1600s European ships crossed the Atlantic frequently.

In addition to her own two young sons, Mary assumed responsibility for two of the four More children sent on the journey. History is unclear why these children were sent; one theory being their parents separated and the father didn’t want them to have access to his estate. Again, only a theory.

Survival of the Fittest

As more and more passengers died from extreme hardships, Mary assumed responsibility for newly orphaned children and young adults.  Being one of the older women in the group, she functioned basically as the colony Matriarch. History has recorded very little about her life, in spite of the major role she must have played nursing the sick, raising orphaned children, feeding family and friends, and other chores necessary for survival in the strange new world,

Mary Brewster was one of only five adult women to survive the first winter. She was one of four still alive for what we consider the “First Thanksgiving.” It really wasn’t, since many cultures set aside a time to give thanks for a successful harvest. But there was a three-day feast in the fall of 1621 and the local Indigenous people were in attendance. Mary died on April 17, 1627, the day after the birth of a granddaughter, also named Mary. William died peacefully in his own bed and surrounded by his family and friends on April 10, 1644.

Sources: http://www.bbc.co.uk/legacies, Pilgrim: A Biography of William Brewster by Mary B. Sherwood (Great Oak Press of Virginia, Falls Church, Virginia), and William Brewster: The Making of a Pilgrim by Sue Allan.

Thank you for taking the time to read about the Brewsters and some of the story behind our traditional Thanksgiving. Share it with a friend or sign up for your own free subscription at HowWiseThen. I will not sell your information.

Mary Brewster’s Love Life and Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures: available wherever books are sold. Bookshop.org/Mayflower; Mary BrewsterAmazon.com/Mary Brewster’s Love Life
Amazon.com/Mayflower-Chronicles
BarnesandNoble.com/w/mayflower-chronicles
BarnesandNoble/MaryBrewster
Autographed copies are available on my website.

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Phoebe Morad, Executive Director of Lutherans Restoring Creation

Tomorrow is Earth Day 2023. We need more than one day a year to remember the impact homosapiens have made on the earth, but a day is better than nothing. I’ve been away this week with a few friends on a getaway to Ohio’s wonderful Amish Country. This blog is from Phoebe Morad, Executive Director of Lutherans Restoring Creation. Her passion for caring for creation is contagious and worthy of a large audience. She speaks wisdom.

Whose Land of the Free?
By Phoebe Morad

Chief Seattle is credited for the sentiment: “The Earth does not belong to us, we belong to the Earth.” Many native peoples share this cosmology. This sentiment has been acquired by many environmentalists, at times with reverence, at other moments, perhaps just as an easy tagline.  As a group facilitator in the eco-faith movement, Lutherans Restoring Creation, I often I casually refer to indigenous teaching; yet, I have no concept as to which community was the original keeper of the lands on which I stand.  Only recently, have I started the practice of including time for “land acknowledgement” before meetings commence.  This offers time to recognize whose ancestors lived on, and/or what people continue to care for, the piece of Earth from which we speak.

Whose Rights Matter Most?

A broader understanding of stewardship is finally drowning out the “domination” reading of the Genesis story.  Earlier generations were eager to utilize the Biblical message as a pathway to conquest via the “manifest destiny” theory.  In The Sacred Contract with America, Caroline Myss reflects on the new-found freedom and equity celebrated by well-meaning colonists who were eager to embrace their rights to till and keep.

However, that genuine self-determination turned sour as patriarchal practices overcame the peaceful beginnings. Initially, some European settler communities did experience peaceful relations with native peoples. But as the numbers of new European arrivals grew, so did tensions of land use.  As Vine Deloria, Jr. explains in Red Earth, White Lies, a fundamentally divergent understanding of land-use was the foundation for broken promises: “The justification for breaking up the tribal land estate was to enable individual Indians to have land of their own – thus taking advantage of the great civilizing forces of private property – and to enable Indians to learn how to manage property.”

Property Managers vs. Property Owners

Through alternative teachings of “stewardship” from progressive Christian traditions, we hear that the duty of a steward is inherently tied to an acknowledgment that what you are caring for is not yours.  It all belongs to God.  How can we, as a contemporary society, reconcile with our past, while we live on and are fed by land that was never ours to re-distribute?

Dr. Tink Tinker, Osage elder, candidly shared the following as part of Rooted and Rising: Voices of Courage in a Time of Climate Crisis:

“Never forget that your wealth, the home that you live in (whether you own it or rent it), the salary you earn, comes from the theft of Indian land, the extraction of resources from that Indian land, and the oppression of forced labor on African peoples who were kidnapped and brought here to work this land. And then, in order to keep labor prices low, Asian peoples were brought in to compete with African people after the Civil War. All of this so that your christian people might have and keep all the more. When you’re on the receiving end of that land and wealth, you might see it as “God’s great gift.” But in reality, it is a tragedy. When you’re on the receiving end of that oppression from the christians, their God is an abject oppressor and not at all a savior.”

Listen with New Ears

Woody Guthrie wrote “This Land is Your Land” in 1940, and since then, it has been taken on as an alternative national anthem by people of various political perspectives.  I urge you to listen with new ears as we continue to wrestle with those little prepositions that mean so much.  Is this land that we belong to or come from? Are we a country that cherishes freedom of religion or from religion?  Have we made it a land of the free or are those who are free the only ones with land?

Phoebe Morad is Executive Director of Lutherans Restoring Creation (LRC), a grassroots movement promoting care for creation in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. For updated resources, events, and worship ideas, visit: Lutherans Restoring Creation 

Mary Brewster’s Love Life and Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures: available wherever books are sold. Bookshop.org/Mayflower; Mary Brewster
Amazon.com/Mary Brewster’s Love Life
Amazon.com/Mayflower-Chronicles
BarnesandNoble.com/w/mayflower-chronicles
BarnesandNoble/MaryBrewster Autographed copies available at my website.

The post Land of the Free? appeared first on How Wise Then.

For the first earth day in 1970 people gathered from coast to coast to sound the alarm that human policies, priorities, and procedures resulted in catastrophic harm to the environment. In New York City 100,000 people marched and picnicked along Fifth Avenue to celebrate the environment. According to the Museum of the City of New York, Mayor John V. Lindsay closed off Fifth Avenue to car traffic and gave an impassioned speech. In 1968 he’d created the country’s first municipal Environmental Protection Administration. Some protested the festivities, claiming them bad for business, but overall support for Earth Day was a popular concept. By the end of the year President Richard Nixon’s administration established the Environmental Protection Agency and the Clean Air Act.

From a Few Activists to a Global Movement

Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson proposed the idea for Earth Day in 1969. Government and citizens collaborated with a small group of young activists and volunteers to launch the 1970 first Earth Day. Five decades later over a billion people celebrate Earth Day annually, addressing issues of pollution and deforestation. Some spend the day picking up trash, removing invasive plants, cleaning up rivers and planting new trees.

Because we’re still in a pandemic, many of this year’s events will be on-line with lectures and films to promote care of creation. To celebrate the Earth Day Birthday, I am sharing a few resources and a story with you.

Earth Day Resources

Earthday.org is offering a series of on-line events from April 20 – 22 with the theme “Restore Our Earth.” Events include workshops, panel discussions, and special performances. Presenters will address such subjects as emerging green technologies and new innovative ideas to restore the world’s fragile ecosystems.

The Houston Zoo offers a special exhibit of re-created life-size prehistoric beasts through September 6, with information about connections between these extinct creatures and modern animals living at the zoo. www.houstonzoo.org

The Church’s Role

The church community has been slow in responding to environment abuse issues, but that is changing. Here are a few examples of the faith community working to provide better care for creation.

United Methodist Church  provides resources to reflect on the goodness of God’s creation and the human responsibility to steward it through worship, education and action.

Care of Creation  is a Wisconsin faith-based non-profit offering resources that is “mobilizing the church around the world to bring healing and wholeness to all of God’s creation.”

In addition to training and equipping volunteers to keep creation-care issues in front of their faith communities,  Lutherans Restoring Creation  offers suggestions on how individuals can advocate for various related concerns such as climate change, consumption, food, and land use.

In a recent  Rolling Stone article  Alex Morris wrote about the growing network of evangelical activists tackling climate change and trying to bring their church with them for the journey.

Special Care of Creation Worship event

Lisa Brenskelle leads a Houston area Lutherans Restoring Creation imitative.  She told me about the Earth Day worship celebration set for Saturday, April 24 at 6 p.m. (Central Time). The 45-minute service is open to all who have interest, but does require a registration:  –  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/creation-focused-liturgy-for-earth-day-tickets-147289164857

My Story and Theory

Last Friday we hosted a driveway social hour.  A neighbor and I distributed 30 invitations to gather in our driveway at 5 p.m. to celebrate the arrival of spring and get to know each other. I do not know most of my neighbors beyond waving at them. I estimate 25 people showed up. Several stayed until it got dark. Several have stopped me to thank us for doing this and asked us to do it again. Why? Because we are all needing more in-person connections with one another. The pandemic has shown us how much we need each other.

Which brings me to my theory. I suspect the drastic uptick we’re seeing in mass shootings and the lack of regard for the planet both stem from how disconnected we are today. When we care about people, we don’t shoot them. When we care about other people, we want them to have safe drinking water, clean air, and adequate shelter.

R. E. S. P. E. C. T.

When I was a child my brother and I went tromping through our neighbor’s flowerbed to retrieve a ball. The neighbor called our mother to complain. To us she was a grouchy lady who hated kids. To our mother she was a lonely widow who took pride in her flowers. Mom made us go apologize. She accepted our apology and respectfully asked that we respect her flowers. We never were really friends with her, but we did learn to have more respect for her and her flowers.

For this 51^st Earth Day I respectfully suggest we each make a little extra effort to have a conversation with a neighbor we don’t yet know and/or spend a little time outdoors observing wildlife. When we know people or critters, we’re more likely to respect them. When we respect people, and critters, we don’t trash their flower beds or any other part of the place they call home. Planet Earth is the only home we have.

Happy Earth Day Birthday!

P.S.   Teacher Platt and her students also recommend this website:  https://couponfollow.com/research/home-green-guide

Thank you for reading about Earth Day 2021. If you enjoyed this, you might enjoy reading this article about other groups working to preserve and protect our fragile nature world or an article I wrote about why we all need to think about Care of Creation issues.

Read more about the early encounters between the Pilgrim settlers and the Pokanokets in my historical novel Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures. Available now in paperback Ebook and audio.

Bookshop.org (Supporting local Indie Bookshops)
Amazon.com/Mayflower-Chronicles-Tale-Two-Cultures/
BarnesandNoble.com/w/mayflower-chronicles-kathryn-haueisen/
Autographed copies available from BlueWillowBookShop.com/book/

The post Earth Day Birthday appeared first on How Wise Then.

Her appointment is a sign of hope for our multi-cultural continent. Finally, after four centuries, a Native American woman sits at the table where national policies and problems are discussed. Indigenous people have traditionally shown great respect for Mother Earth and I’ve seen the need for greater respect for Mom Nature.

Experience Shapes Perceptions

A mixed variety of work and life experiences have influenced my attitudes toward both the natural world and those who managed it long before Europeans showed up. Among these experiences:

• This quote: “The Peacemaker taught us about the Seven Generations. He said, when you sit in council for the welfare of the people, you must not think of yourself or of your family, not even of your generation. He said, make your decisions on behalf of the seven generations coming, so that they may enjoy what you have today.” Oren Lyons (Seneca) – Faithkeeper, Onondaga Nation
• My work in outdoor ministry in Ohio and Texas where I learned the philosophy that we don’t inherit land from our ancestors as much as we borrow it from our children and grandchildren.
• The Cuyahoga River. In the late 1960s this river, which flows through Cleveland into Lake Erie, caught fire. It wasn’t a miracle, but rather the result of years of unregulated industries dumping flammable waste into it until the oil slick burst into flames. That environmental disaster hit my home town.
• My brief career with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. There I learned that before settlers started moving into Ohio, the forests were so thick a squirrel could travel from the Ohio River to the shores of Lake Erie without ever touching the ground. Settlers soon clear cut enormous swaths of land to plant crops. We need places to grow food, but we also need trees.
• Another short career stop with the outdoor drama, Trumpet in the Land. Set in the Revolutionary War period, the play tells the story of Moravian missionary David Zeisberger and peaceful Delaware Indians who founded the Ohio settlement Schoenbrunn in 1772. In 1782 a Pennsylvanian militia attacked the nearby Gnadenhutten Moravian mission, believing Indians there had kidnapped and killed several white people. They had not. By then the Indians had relocated further west, but returned to harvest any remaining crops. The massive migration of Indigenous people from the east to the west began with the 1830 Indian removal act and culminated in the manifest destiny movement a few years later.
• The GEM of Egypt (Giant Earth Mover in Egypt Valley, Ohio). It was used to strip mine in eastern Ohio, removing chunks of earth bigger than buses with each swipe of its enormous jaw. While we lived there we took people to witness the barren mess of gooey infertile earth left behind. The acid run-off flowing down the hills in rivets looked very much like red tear tracks.

New Secretary of the Interior, New Hope for the Future

All this makes me excited about what Debra Haaland brings to the table. Born in Winslow, Arizona in 1960, she earned a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of New Mexico and later her J.D. from the University’s School of Law. In a press release, Biden’s office stated, “Haaland is a barrier-breaking public servant who has spent her career fighting for families, including in Tribal Nations, rural communities, and communities of color.”

Prior to her Cabinet appointment, she served as Vice Chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources. In the past the Interior Department has been used to oppress America’s Indigenous peoples. This department manages our public lands, endangered species and natural resources, and oversees government-to-government relations between the U.S.A. and Native American tribes.

Many Are Hopeful, Others Not

“Indian country has shouted from the valleys, from the mountaintops, that it’s time. It’s overdue,” Sandia Pueblo tribal member Stephine Poston told NPR after Haaland was nominated. Tribal groups, environmental organizations and lawmakers all celebrated her nomination to lead the Interior Department. However, she also faces opposition from some lawmakers and industry groups that consider her stance on various environmental issues too extreme.

In response she said during her confirmation hearing  “There’s no question that fossil energy does and will continue to play a major role in America for years to come,” adding that climate change must be addressed as the “challenge of our lifetime. The department has a role in harnessing the clean energy potential of our public lands to create jobs and new economic opportunities. The president’s agenda demonstrates that America’s public lands can and should be engines for clean energy production.”

Endless expansion and unregulated consumption of natural resources is not sustainable. When the concept of “Manifest Destiny” was coined by newspaper editor John O’Sullivan in 1845 the population of the country was roughly 24 million. Today it is about 328 million. All who dwell here need clean water, clean air, and healthy land to sustain life and provide food and fuel.

Thanks for taking time to read about this article. Share this with a friend so they can help spread the word too. Sign up for your own free subscription at HowWiseThen. I have a variety of ‘thank you’ resources waiting for you there.

Read more about the early encounters between the Pilgrim settlers and the Pokanokets in my historical novel Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures. Available now in paperback Ebook and audio.

Bookshop.org (Supporting local Indie Bookshops)
Amazon.com/Mayflower-Chronicles-Tale-Two-Cultures/
BarnesandNoble.com/w/mayflower-chronicles-kathryn-haueisen/
Autographed copies available from BlueWillowBookShop.com/book/

The post Debra Haaland – New Secretary of the Interior. appeared first on How Wise Then.

Our modern ways of managing the land are based on assumptions imported to this continent by early European colonists. We need to reconsider these assumptions. Two cultures, with two drastically different understandings about land, started clashing the day Christopher Columbus first sighted land on his epic 1492 voyage. The conflicts continue to the present day.

Doctrine of Christian Discovery

Ever hear of the Doctrine of Christian Discovery? It is a series of documents from the 1400s when European monarchs raced to claim territories far removed from their thrones. It began in 1452 when Pope Nicholas V issued a Papal Bull stating European monarchs had the right to “discover” and claim new land for the Church anywhere not yet occupied by Christians. It essentially declared war against all non-Christian areas, authorizing the conquest of those nations and territories.

The doctrine evolved from the eleventh through thirteenth centuries Crusades and efforts to claim control of the Holy Land. The Church’s Doctrine of Christian Discovery authorized Christian monarchs to claim and conquer other lands, enslaving people already living there. According to this doctrine, if Christians weren’t living in an area it was unoccupied. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Church arbitrated land claims among Christian monarchs, providing religious and legal grounds to seize and occupy foreign lands, labeling Indigenous people “savages, heathens and infidels.”

Long Chain of Events

That doctrine set in motion a tragic chain of events still playing out today. Modern land disputes are a continuation of earlier cultural clashes. The North American Indigenous people considered land a community resource, available to all, for the benefit of all. The new immigrants operated under the principle of the Doctrine of Christian Discovery. I suppose they thought they were being gracious by offering to trade with Indigenous people as opposed to simply killing them or enslaving them, though history documents generous quantities of that as well as trade deals.

In the European system, a few wealthy monarchs and clergy owned the majority of the land everyone else worked for the benefit of society, especially the ruling elite. They considered land a commodity to be traded, bought and sold, or leased.

When Indigenous people made agreements with European colonists about access to land, they believed they were granting strangers use of the land. They understood these newcomers also depended on the land to survive. They considered the things the Europeans gave them gifts of appreciation, not payments. People couldn’t own land any more than they could own the ocean or the air.

However, the European settlers thought of this as their chance to become landowners in an exotic and exciting new place. Of course, people could own land. They had for centuries back home. For the colonists the issue was who would own land in this new-to-them world.

New Christian Colony

When the Pilgrims settled in modern-day Plymouth, they did so with a charter to establish a new Christian colony for King James. In addition to different assumptions about land, the two cultures also clashed in their thinking about the roles of men and women in society. In English culture men made the decisions and women deferred to them. If a woman did own any property or other assets, they became her husband’s property when she married.

In Pokanoket culture women managed the land because the land produced food, which sustained life. Nurturing life was women’s work. Men were warriors and hunters, roles that took life, albeit in order to save or preserve life. The English men kept trying to negotiate with the Native men and the Native men kept sending them to talk to the woman.

The situation, though confusing and tense, was relatively manageable when there were dozens of English settlers in an area occupied by thousands of Indigenous people. However, as more and more settlers arrived, land became an increasingly conflicted issue. The Pequot War of 1636/37 was about who would control the lucrative beaver trade and the Pilgrim’s plans for expansion. The King Philip’s War of 1675/76 started after Massasoit Ousa Mequin, the Pokanoket grand leader of the region, died. He’d initiated the 1621 treaty with the Plymouth settlers, which both parties honored until his death. His son, Metacom, also known as King Philip, became increasingly concerned as more and more English arrived, all wanting land. Tensions escalated into a war that left more people dead per capita than the Civil War two centuries later.

Modern Land Management Principles

In the four hundred years since that bloody conflict, policies around land usage have generally put profits ahead of all other considerations. Treaties are made only to be broken. Whole populations of Indigenous people were forced to migrate, ending up on reservations, where previously granted rights are ignored in pursuit of the next source of revenue.

Forests have been clear cut; water ways and air polluted; the earth turned upside down in search of fuel and then left behind as barren waste lands. Today we’re contending with a land use emergency on two fronts. First, our current use and abuse of the natural world is not sustainable. Secondly, our neglect, betrayal, and abuse of Indigenous people, and others who work the land on our behalf, calls for a radical rethinking about how we manage land and who determines the policies.

This is why I did a happy dance when I learned that our new Secretary of the Interior is a Native American woman! It’s been four-hundred years, but at long last we will give the Indigenous methods of land management a chance. I’ll write more about Deb Haaland, member of the New Mexico Laguna Pueblo, next week.

For now, I think I hear Mother Nature letting out a long sigh of relief.  Perhaps we will now realize the Genesis mandate “to have dominion over all the earth” actually means we’re called to care for the planet as we care for our own personal domiciles. I hope so.

Thanks for taking time to read about this article. Share this with a friend so they can help spread the word too. Sign up for your own free subscription at HowWiseThen. I have a variety of ‘thank you’ resources waiting for you there.

Read more about the early encounters between the Pilgrim settlers and the Pokanokets in my historical novel Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures. Available now in paperback Ebook and audio.

Bookshop.org (Supporting local Indie Bookshops)
Amazon.com/Mayflower-Chronicles-Tale-Two-Cultures/
BarnesandNoble.com/w/mayflower-chronicles-kathryn-haueisen/
Autographed copies available from BlueWillowBookShop.com/book/

The post Land Yields Life appeared first on How Wise Then.

Writing about our inconveniencies seems ridiculous compared to their plight from November 1620 through the following spring thaw. The weather then was probably comparable to what we experienced in Houston last week – temps in the teens and in places below that. Though we were cold, the house temperature only dropped to the lower 50s. We have a gas stove to prepare warm meals and endless hot drinks. The Mayflower lacked such luxuries.

An Ounce of Prevention

Anticipating the pipes might freeze, we turned off the water and drained the water into numerous pots and pans. Good thing we did. By mid-week we were advised to boil all tap water before consuming it. The people on the Mayflower didn’t have running water. They drank beer, a safer option than water, and used chamber pots to handle necessary functions. There was no privacy. It repulses me thinking about it; let alone living that way. Though the voyage was only two months, they were onboard for two months before they actually sailed and lived on the ship a couple more months after arriving, until they built their first shelter. First, they had to chop down the trees for the wood to make the shelter. We had to find some matches to light the gas stove and remember where we stored the extra batteries to run the flashlights.

The events of last week, combined with spending hours each week back in the 1500 and 1600s doing research, got me to thinking about life in the 21^st Century. I am conflicted.

Stuck Between Grief and Gratitude

Years ago, I did my required Clinical Pastor Education (CPE) training at Houston Hermann Hospital before it became Memorial Hermann. One day I was given the task of convincing a new mother she had to name her twins for their birth certificates and go home. She was stuck. One twin had died almost immediately after birth. When she mourned that baby, she felt guilty for not being grateful for the life of the surviving twin. If she rejoiced at the birth of her healthy baby, she felt guilty for not mourning the dead one.

Her family wasn’t helping. They kept reminding her, “At least you have one.” My assignment was to talk her into moving on. I had no words of wisdom to offer. All I had to offer her were two ears and a few tears at her plight. One of the things they drill into us in CPE training is the power of just showing up. I probably spent an hour or so with her, saying very little. She didn’t say much either as I recall. Somehow being together for a few minutes in the midst of such a conflicted moment gave her the ability to comply with the hospital’s request to name her babies, and prepare to take the living one home with her.

Grateful and Yet Frustrated

My days of naming babies ended a long time ago; but I am today about where this young mother was in that hospital room long ago – conflicted. If I count my blessings, I feel guilty for all the privileges I had even in the midst of the challenges of last week. Though our home was cold and dark by 6:30 p.m., we have a good home with insulation and plenty of warm blankets and clothing. Though we lacked power, we have a gas stove to prepare warm meals. Though we lacked running water, we had water and a way to heat it. I am grateful for all this.

And yet it was a miserable week. Without power I soon drained the computer and could no longer use it. The phone reception dropped to nearly nothing in the house, rendering anything related to digital or voice communication slow or non-existent. A couple of times we moved the car to a nearby parking lot where we got reception to send and receive e-mails, listen to the news, recharge the phones, and warm up. All luxuries to be sure.

Life Elsewhere

I’ve travel to places where none of these resources exist. I’ve been hosted by a woman whose “bathroom” is an outhouse, whose “bedroom” is a hammock under a canvas canopy, and whose “kitchen” is a charcoal grill outside that “bedroom.” Her situation was neither rare nor temporary. That is how she and her family lived until Habitat for Humanity selected her family to get one of the new homes Habitat was building in her community.

She, along with others, kept food coming, meal after meal when they could barely feed themselves. I think the local Habitat affiliate paid for the food they prepared for us. I hope so. I and my team members slept in relative luxury at night in a hotel a few miles away.

Asking Questions That Lack Answers

My conflicted response probably comes from too much time to ponder a question that has no adequate answer: “Why?” Why are some condemned to live in squalor and misery while others live in comfort, surrounded with conveniences?

To whom much is given, much is expected. How are we who have so much, even in a week lacking heat and running water, to respond? I do not know, but I have some theories.

• I don’t believe anyone deserves to suffer any more than others deserve to prosper, though I know this theology was widely taught a century ago. Our actions do have consequences, but many of life’s circumstances are beyond our control – like the Texas Deep Freeze.
• The causes behind the circumstances are complex. It is so much easier to blame some scapegoat than work collaboratively to identify and implement workable solutions.
• Corny cliches are often true. The rain, and the freezing temperatures, really do fall on everyone, regardless of social status.
• We are all both sinners and saints. The amount of which trait dominates depends on which one we nurture.
• We are all interdependent on one another. Ultimately, there is no “we” vs. “them.” There is only one enormous “us.”

Better Days Ahead

The past year has rattled a lot of assumptions, upset semi-tractor size truckloads of plans, and continues to cause real danger and plenty of consternation We need one another in times of crisis, and yet the pandemic crisis keeps us apart or risks lives getting together.

Though we can’t control the weather, we can help one another. Deliver a meal. Write a check. Call to check up on people. Share the heat and safe water.

This scripture quote popped up this week in a journal friend Liz Johnson gave me: Finally, friends, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. (Philippians 4:8).

Spring is coming. That is certainly true, right, and lovely.

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Jones and his crew sailed the wooden cargo ship Mayflower from London to Southampton in July. He’d probably navigated that route often on trips up and down the western European coast delivering and picking up cargo. This would be his first time transporting passengers and his first trans-Atlantic voyage.

Rendezvous with the Speedwell

On July 22 the Speedwell arrived in Southampton from the Lowlands (Netherlands) with 37 English Separatist religious refugees. They were part of a much larger group of Separatists who’d been living there since fleeing England in 1608. The Leiden Separatists decided to send these few to the New World, while the remainder of the community stayed in Leiden. If these first-to-go settlers succeeded  in establishing a new colony, others would join them on future voyages. If it did not go well, these pioneers could return to Leiden. After tearful good-byes at the dock, the Speedwell sailed to join the Mayflower in England.

The Separatists got a charter from King James to establish an English colony at the mouth of the Hudson River, similar to Jamestown established further south in 1607. Late in their negotiations with investors who were financing the trip, the investors insisted they take additional people with them. The Separatists objected. They envisioned a settlement populated entirely with people who shared their beliefs the Established Church of England was beyond reforming.

Take Them or Leave on Your Own

The investors threatened to withhold funding. The Separatists yielded and two groups traveled together. The Separatists thought of the new group as “strangers” and themselves the “saints.” The Stranger group included those seeking  financial fortunes, orphaned children assigned to various families, men with specialized skills to build a settlement, and Myles Standish. Standish sailed to provide military protection from pirates and other dangers they might encounter.

The Speedwell started leaking on the short voyage across the English Channel. Passengers on both ships waited while the crew repaired the Speedwell. On August 5 the two ships set off on the grand adventure. The Speedwell would stay with the settlers after the Mayflower returned to England. That way they’d have a way to better explore their new location and fish to help repay their debt to the investors.

Another Day, Another Setback

Shortly after sailing away from Southampton, the Speedwell sprang more leaks. The two ships docked in Dartmouth. The passengers waited while the crew made repairs. On August 21 they set off again. Once again, the Speedwell began to leak. Some speculate the Speedwell crew sabotaged the ship to avoid sailing across the Atlantic and staying on the far side of the ocean for a year or more. The two ships sailed to Plymouth where the Speedwell was pronounced unfit to make the trans-Atlantic voyage.

By this time the initial passengers on the Mayflower had been on board for six weeks. Those on the Speedwell had been on board for a month. Saints and Strangers alike worried about how much of their food for the trip was getting used waiting to sail. They must have also realized the longer they delayed sailing, the worse the weather conditions were likely to be. Yet, they’d made too many sacrifices to abort the trip now.

Enough is Enough

Understandably, some lost their enthusiasm. They reclaimed their things and went home. The rest, moved over to the Mayflower. The new passenger list of 102 consisted of 102 passengers: About 40 Separatists; the rest Strangers. There were 74 males and 28 females, three of them pregnant. About 30 of the passengers were children. Plus around 20 to 30 crew – and two dogs. A mastiff and a spaniel. They crammed together on a ship measuring 90 feet stem to stern; with their living space measuring about 60 feet by 25 feet.

Finally, on September 6, the Mayflower sailed off into history. They would not see land again until November 9 when they arrived, off course, along the coast of Cape Cod.

Stormy Seas Ahead

They sailed into a horrific storm, which blew them off course and cracked the beam supporting the main mast. The crew wanted to turn around, hoping they might make it back to England with a damaged ship. They didn’t think they could sail all the way to the New World and back to England. The passengers produced an enormous screw they’d brought to build their new homes. They repaired the beam and continued sailing west.

They approached land 400 miles north of their intended destination and beyond the area covered by their charter from King James. Some quickly realized being beyond the king’s jurisdiction meant they could make up their own rules. Others realized they’d have total chaos without some governing documents to determine what they would do. This is how we got the Mayflower compact. Several men – they were all men – drafted the document and every adult male passenger was pressured to sign it. Those who were illiterate made their marks, witnessed by the others.

New Life in a New Land

Though land was in sight, it was now winter, so they continued to live on the ship, sending out expeditions to look for a place to establish themselves. The first two expeditions failed to find a suitable place. Three women delivered babies while living on the ship. Stephen and Elizabeth Hopkins added baby boy Oceanus to their family while still sailing toward land. William and Susanna White welcome baby boy Peregrine while anchored in Cape Cod Bay. Mary Allerton delivered a still born child while still living on the ship.

On the third expedition trip the men found a suitable place to establish Plimoth Plantation. The Mayflower sailed across the Bay from Provincetown to modern Plymouth MA, arriving December 25. The English settlers built their new colony on the site of the abandoned Native Patuxet village. The village was deserted shortly before the English arrived due to a deadly pandemic took the lives of everyone in the village who didn’t relocate.

Master Jones took pity on them and postponed his return trip to England until April 5. He and his crew arrived back in England on May 6.

For more information check out – Mayflower400UK or Mayflower History

Thank you for taking time to read about the Mayflower voyage. Share it with a friend or sign up for your own free subscription at HowWiseThen. In the weeks to come I’ll be sharing other information about the amazing Mayflower story and events planned to commemorate it – even if most of them will now be virtual.

Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale or Two Cultures is scheduled for release in October. Here are three places available for pre-orders. Others will be available in the weeks to come.

Bookshop.org (Supporting local Indie Bookshops)
Amazon.com/Mayflower-Chronicles-Tale-Two-Cultures/                             https://www.bluewillowbookshop.com (in Houston)

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Phoebe Morad, Executive Director of Lutherans Restoring Creation

My summer 2020 blogs come from a variety of people commenting on the theme #ListenLearnLove. Today’s guest blog is from Phoebe Morad, the Executive Director of Lutherans Restoring Creation and a woman whose voice is worthy of a broad audience. Thank you, Phoebe for this blog and your important work.  As we head into a Fourth of July holiday, in the midst of a pandemic that precludes our usual celebrations, this is a good year to reflect on:

Whose Land of the Free?
By Phoebe Morad

Chief Seattle is credited for the sentiment: “The Earth does not belong to us, we belong to the Earth.” Many native peoples share this the cosmology. This sentiment has been acquired by many environmentalists, at times with reverence, at other moments, perhaps just as an easy tagline.  As a group facilitator in the eco-faith movement, Lutherans Restoring Creation, I often I casually refer to an indigenous teaching; yet, I have no concept as to which community was the original keeper of the lands on which I stand.  Only recently, have I started the practice of including  time for “land acknowledgement” before meetings commence.  This offers time to recognize whose ancestors lived on, and/or what people continue to care for, the piece of Earth from which we speak.

A broader understanding of stewardship is finally drowning out the “domination” reading of the Genesis story.  Earlier generations were eager to utilize the Biblical message as a pathway to conquest via the “manifest destiny” theory.  In The Sacred Contract with America, Caroline Myss reflects on the new-found freedom and equity celebrated by well-meaning colonists who were eager to embrace their rights to till and keep.  However, that genuine self-determination turned sour as patriarchal practices overcame the peaceful beginnings. Initially some European settler communities did experience peaceful relations with native peoples. But as the numbers of new European arrivals grew, so did tensions of land use.  As Vine Deloria, Jr. explains in Red Earth, White Lies, a fundamentally divergent understanding of land-use was the foundation for broken promises:

“The justification for breaking up the tribal land estate was to enable individual Indians to have land of their own – thus taking advantage of the great civilizing forces of private property – and to enable Indians to learn how to manage property.”

Property managers vs. property owners

Through alternative teachings of “stewardship” from progressive Christian traditions, we hear that the duty of a steward is inherently tied to an acknowledgement that what you are caring for is not yours.  It all belongs to God.  How can we, as a contemporary society, reconcile with our past, while we live on and are fed by land that was never ours to re-distribute?

Dr. Tink Tinker, Osage elder, candidly shared the following as part of Rooted and Rising: Voices of Courage in a Time of Climate Crisis:

Never forget that your wealth, the home that you live in (whether you own it or rent it), the salary you earn, comes from the theft of Indian land, the extraction of resources from that Indian land, and the oppression of forced labor on African peoples who were kidnapped and brought here to work this land. And then, in order to keep labor prices low, Asian peoples were brought in to compete with African people after the Civil War. All of this so that your christian people might have and keep all the more. When you’re on the receiving end of that land and wealth, you might see it as “God’s great gift.” But in reality, it is a tragedy. When you’re on the receiving end of that oppression from the christians, their God is an abject oppressor and not at all a savior.”

Listen with new ears

Woody Guthrie wrote, “This Land is Your Land” in 1940 and since then it has been taken on as an alternative national anthem by people of various political perspectives.  I urge you to listen with new ears this Independence Day as we continue to wrestle with those little prepositions that mean so much.  Is this land that we belong to or come from? Are we a country who cherishes freedom of religion or from religion?  Have we made it a land of the free or are those who are free the only ones with land?

• Featured image credit:  https://www.quoteswave.com/picture-quotes/365414

Phoebe Morad is the Executive Director of Lutherans Restoring Creation (LRC), a grassroots movement promoting care for creation in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. We accomplish this by cultivating a community of dedicated stewards of earth and neighbor who proclaim God’s promise of hope and healing for all. For updated resources, events, and worship ideas visit: Lutherans Restoring Creation 

If you enjoyed this blog, you may also enjoy an earlier blog about Lutherans Restoring Creation or this one about the Galapagos Islands or this earlier blog about Independence Day.

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Guest blog by Phoebe Morad
Executive Director of Lutherans Restoring Creation

Lutherans Restoring Creation.org (LCR)

In 2010 dozens of representatives from around the Evangelical Lutheran Church in American (ELCA) gathered to learn about introducing a new ELCA curriculum for congregations: “Care for Creation.” That gathering of students, seminary professors, and theologians launched a movement that has now evolved into thousands of “earth-keepers” who work together through Lutherans Restoring Creation (LRC).

Since then, we have become an official, independent non-profit which invites ELCA community members from a variety of backgrounds to gather and discover common ground as part of our Christian vocation to be good stewards.  All are welcome to the table who want to learn more about how to care for their neighbors as an inherent part of deepening their relationship with God.  In preparation for speaking to “earth-care” issues in the church the scope of “neighbor” is widened to include all with whom we share this common home. LRC works to ensure leadership trainings (virtual or in-person) are not just a one-time, feel good event. Through consistent accompaniment and presence of our established organization and dedicated staff, the efforts of many across the country can be heard together as a chorus, rather than a few people singing to their own choirs.

Fruits of LRC’s Labor

Below are some of the highlights of this group’s results since that first gathering in 2010:

• Trained over 600 individuals through summits, assembly workshops, and retreats about the theological connections and non-partisan resources to best utilize existing church structures to make progress in becoming true stewards of all resources and loving our global neighbors.
• We’ve seen an average of 20 participants attend retreats around the country since 2011, with attendance sometimes as high as 50.
• Hundreds of ELCA members have been exposed to LRC resources via our “green shepherds” who speak at assemblies and other regional conferences.
• Created online forms to register personal pledges for lifestyle changes (for kids, youth, and adults) and for entire ELCA Congregations via the Action Plan.
• Lutheran “green teams” are working in 21 states with dozens of trained Green Shepherds, Speakers, and Energy Stewards ready to assist other ministry groups to accomplish their congregation’s custom Action Plans.
• LRC continues to have the largest faith denomination representation participating in the EPA’s Energy Star Portfolio Manager program. Twenty-one ELCA Congregations from nine different states are certified with this free software which compares energy and water usage across the nation.

More to Do

We’ve made some progress since the first Earth Day in 1970. Environmental engineering is now offered as a major at many universities. We’ve cleaned up some of the waterways and air. Increasing numbers of people are aware of the plastic problem. We’ve made good progress in improving transportation fuel efficiency and finding alternative ways to heat and cool our work and living places. We have accomplished much, but there remains yet much more to do.

If you want to help your faith community grow in awareness and action to ensure a safe, clean, vibrant future for us all, contact Lutherans Restoring Creation.

Thank you Phoebe Morad and LRC for the work you do on behalf of all us. When I see so much abuse of the natural world, I can’t help but wonder if God might regret bailing humans out all those previous times we disregarded and disrespected God’s glorious creation.

If you found this blog useful, you may also find these blogs of interest: Galapagos Islands, Nature’s Pest Control System, The Plastic Problem, or Why We Should Care  by Lisa Brenskelle, one of the people who attended the first LRC organizing event and a Houston based earth-keeper.

Thank you for taking time to read this guest blog. I hope you found it informative and inspirational. If so, why not share it with a friend? If you got this from a friend, you can have your very own free subscription by signing up at up at HowWiseThen. I am always looking for leads about people using their time and energy to make useful contributions to our global village. If you have someone to recommend for a future HowWiseThen blog, please let me know. Check out my website for your free download of resources.

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The Wampanoag have inhabited this area for 15,000 years, and provided lifesaving survival skills and assistance to people arriving from Europe and Great Britain in the early 17th century. However, few Americans are fully aware that Native communities are still here and nurturing a beautiful living culture consisting of Earth-based spirituality, language revival, and environmental caretaking and consciousness.

The good news is that today Native people – and those who want a more complete and accurate history of this continent – are starting to receive more attention and traction. The not-so-good news is that many people in the United States are still perfectly content to ignore the history and rights of Indigenous people, even dismissing Native culture as past history. All too often, Indigenous people are still mentioned in the past tense in the schools, history classes, books, articles, and essays.

The traditional term for a Wampanoag community leader is sachem. The role of the sachem is to provide egalitarian leadership and facilitate consensus based decision-making. Historically, sachems worked alongside everyone else to provide food and shelter for the community. They have held specific roles, but not in the context of hierarchy as it is understood in European societies.

Women are Equals

One aspect of Wampanoag culture that truly baffled English men first negotiating trade and other deals was the matrilineal nature of Wampanoag community. Women wielded great influence within the community. Time after time an English man approached a Wampanoag man, only to be directed to talk to a Wampanoag woman. Wampanoag communities typically choose sachems through the mother’s line. If no qualified leader is available there, the community chooses someone else, usually with the consensus of the elder women. Leaders are chosen for their natural leadership abilities.

The Wampanoags, along with thousands of others in adjacent Native communities, had been taking care of the land for thousands of years before Europeans arrived. In Europe, a few wealthy people owned most of the land and controlled it with deeds. The Wampanoag and other groups view Mother Earth as sacred, and care for her accordingly. Owning land is as far fetched as the idea of owning the air or rain. In contrast,  Europeans risked the treacherous trans-Atlantic journey hoping to own a piece of land, something not likely to ever happen for them back in Europe.

Tragedies to Address

In the years right before the Mayflower sailed into Cape Cod Bay the Native people had to deal with two assaults to their peaceful way of life. The first occurred in 1614 when English Captain Hunt kidnapped 19 young Wampanoag men and a half dozen other Native people to sell as slaves in Europe. These kidnappings naturally made Indigenous people suspicious of all Europeans. The second disaster was the series of epidemics from 1616 to 1619. Native people had no immunity to European-imported diseases like Yellow Fever that left three out of every four in their graves. Entire villages were wiped out. The Wampanoag refer to this period as the Great Dying.

By the time the Mayflower arrived, the Wampanoag population was reduced to around 30,000 inhabiting 40 villages. At that time, Ousamequin was the great sachem among

sachems – the Massasoit. He bore much of the responsibility for leading the Wampanoag after the devastation described above. As I wrote in a previous blog about Massasoit Ousamequin, this  shaped how he and others interacted with the English settlers in 1620 and 1621.

Seasons of Change

Initially, the fledgling English settlements had little impact on the Wampanoag, who spent their summers closer to the ocean, tending their gardens and supplementing their diets with fish, lobster, and other creatures caught from the sea and rivers. Each spring Wampanoag women prepared the fields for planting, using fish caught by men in the annual herring run to the enrich the soil. They grew corn, squash and beans. When summer gave way to fall, they moved inland where they hunted in the forests. They also tapped maple syrup and dined on cranberries and other wild plants.

Sleeping benches along the perimeter

During this time period Wampanoag lived in wetus, dome-shaped homes built with wood poles, bark, and cattail reeds, leaving a hole in the roof for smoke to escape from fires used for cooking and warmth. People slept on benches along the perimeter. (Photos by author at Plimoth Plantation Wampanoag Village, Plymouth, MA)

Early European sleeping closet

Sleeping quarters for people in Europe weren’t much more luxurious. With the exception of royalty and the very wealthy, a typical “bedroom” in a European home of the same era might be an over-sized closet where adults slept sitting up. Children slept on bedding spread on the floor by night and stored in the closet by day. (Photo by author in a 15th-century home at American Pilgrim Museum in Leiden, Netherlands)

Adaptation of the Cultures

The Wampanoag are highly spiritual in nature. They believe a divine spirit blessed them with the gifts from the land and had well developed rituals to express their gratitude. The Wampanoag have a reciprocal relationship with the land that gives them life and they care for it in return.

Massasoit Ousamequin initiated a treaty with the first English settlers, and several friendships between the two cultures followed. A generation later two pivotal events pitted the two cultures against each other. The first was Ousamequin’s death in 1661. Before he died he asked the English to give his two sons English names. His older son, Wamsutta, was re-named Alexander. His younger son, Metacomet, was re-named Philip. Wamsutta/Alexander followed his father as the great sachem when Ousamequin died. After meeting with the English, he became violently ill and perished, leaving his younger brother to take his place. A record from the Plymouth Council from that era records the purchase of poison “to rid ourselves of a pest.”

Metacomet/King Philip, grew increasingly concerned about the second alarming situation. The first English settlers operated more or less under a “live and let live” philosophy, in part because they were desperate and needed Native assistance to survive; but also, because they got to know the Wampanoag as neighbors. Later arrivals, no longer in danger of starving, brought insatiable appetites for more and more land and drove Native peoples further and further away. King Philip decided the only way to preserve their way of life was to chase the Europeans away once and for all.

In terms of the percentage of the population dead because of it, King Philip’s War was more deadly than the Civil War. The Wampanoag lost the war, their land, their relatives, and much of their way of life.

Life Today

Though significantly reduced in number, the Wampanoag people survived. Today there are an estimated 12,000 Wampanoag, living mainly in the Massachusetts and Cape Cod area. The few Wampanoag currently living in the Caribbean probably descend from ancestors taken there as slaves. Some Wampanoag live at Gay Head on Martha’s Vineyard, some in Mashpee on Cape Cod, where there is a museum; and others are scattered in a variety of places.

So, what? you may ask. That happened 400 years ago. Who cares about that today?

I care for two reasons. First, a community founded on genocide is a community in need of repentance. Secondly, the earth groans with the consequences of centuries of neglect and abuse. Indigenous people know how to care for the earth. We do ourselves a great service when not only learn about the Wampanoag and their past; but also learn from them today.

We can’t undo history; but we can learn from it and do better going forward.

Thank you for taking time learn more about the history of the people who saved the lives of the people we credit with establishing our modern Thanksgiving tradition. I hope you found this informative and inspiring. If so, please take another minute to forward this to a friend. If you got this from a friend, you can have your very own free subscription by signing up at up at HowWiseThen. One of the gifts I have for you is a schedule of the many events scheduled to commemorate the first encounters between the English and the Wampanoag. Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures will be released next year to tell a more complete story of what happened 400 years ago.

If you enjoyed this blog you may also enjoy an earlier one I wrote about Ousamequin as the Wampanoag Massasoit

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