The people we’ve come to know as Pilgrims always considered themselves English subjects. They did not want to leave their heritage and country, but as the tumultuous events of the late 16th and early 17th centuries unfolded, leaving became increasingly necessary to protect their lives. The Mayflower story begins in the tiny village of Scrooby, in northern England. It was a small community then and remains a little village today. According to a Legacies of […]
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Hope and Wonder
With all the astonishing events unfolding in recent weeks, I’ve been thinking about hope and wonder, the difference between them, and the importance of both of them. A couple of weeks ago, those churches that follow the common three-year lectionary cycle heard, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1). Hope is a simple four-letter word that carries an ocean’s worth of depth and a mountain’s […]
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William and Dorothy Bradford – Mayflower Voyagers
In 1620 William and Dorothy Bradford sailed on Mayflower from England to New England. A great deal of what we know about the establishment of the Plymouth colony comes from Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation. Four hundred years later this book is still a good source of information about the Pilgrim story, though it is obviously written from the English perspective. Today historians go to great lengths to tell the same story from the Native perspective. History has preserved […]
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Pilgrim Governor John Carver
This blog about Pilgrim Governor John Carver is an edited version of an article I first published three years ago. I’m running a summer special of a few of my favorite old posts because 1) I’m taking some time away from my computer to vacation; 2) I am so very weary of what has been going on in the news lately that I want to hide in the 1600s; and 3) I’ve come up with […]
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Modern Hero – Desmond Tutu
We’ve lost several cultural heroes in recent weeks: Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Betty White, and now Sidney Poitier. The heroes we select guide our lives as surely as the Star of Bethlehem guided the Magi to the newborn Christ-child. Where we end up on a trip depends on which signs we follow. Pick the wrong sign and end up someplace you didn’t intend to go. Desmond Tutu was a hero worth following. His contributions toward peace […]
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