Though I am neither French nor Catholic, I mourn at the devastation at the Notre Dame Cathedral on the Monday of Christian’s Holiest of Weeks. Long before I was a pastor, I was drawn to churches. I’ve been inside hundreds of churches and a member of over a dozen. It’s in my DNA. My Great Grandfather twelve generations back, Elder William Brewster, was tapped to be the spiritual leader of the band of Pilgrims on […]
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Yet Another Book About the Mayflower?
For the past two years I’ve been researching what led the passengers of the Mayflower to get on that small, wooden ship and sail away to a place they’d never been. I learned how their story is interwoven with political events of the era such as the beheading of Mary Queen of Scots and King Henry VIII’s dramatic act of rebellion against the Holy Roman Catholic Church. Much to my chagrin and regret, I learned […]
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Pilgrim and Native Peace Talks
The passengers on the Mayflower knew the New World was populated with people; people they referred to as savages primarily because they dressed and worshiped differently than folks back in England. Some of these Natives belonged to the Wampanoag Nation of communities, numbering an estimated 30,000 in the early 1600’s. At the time the English Pilgrim and Adventurer settlers began exploring Cape Cod the Wampanoags were ruled by Sachem Massasoit (also known as Ousamequin) who lived […]
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The “First” Thanksgiving Was No Picnic
The traditional Thanksgiving story about the Pilgrims and the Native Americans coming together for three days of feasting is as much fiction as fact. For starters, there are credible claims of other thanksgiving celebrations among European immigrants that predate the 1621 version taught in many schools. The Natives had their own rituals around marking the harvest season. The New England Natives and the Europeans did come together approximately a year after the English arrived on […]
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Scrooby, England – Late 1500’s
“We follow the rules laid out in the Bible for running our church.” William Brewster (via BrainyQuote) Apparently my great-great-great something grandparents were expelled from St. Wilfrid in Scrooby because they defied the laws of the land at the time by not worshiping in this Anglican parish. They worshiped instead with the trouble-makers of their day – the Separatists. Most people pick up the Pilgrim story with the arrival of the Mayflower in Cape Cod […]
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