A Pilgrim Reality Check

Although allready three days after Thanksgiving, Pilgrims are still on the mind. I hope you enjoy the following commentary containing some things I learned while teaching US history at Logos School last year. I must credit Nathaniel Philbrick's "Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War."


A PILGRIM REALITY CHECK:
Lessons From the Pilgrims for our Current Economic and Political Affairs

Forty-five billion here, seven-hundred billion there. There isn’t any business the government won’t bailout if it’s big enough. And with the size of the figures floating around, it’s enough to make everyone dizzy. Compassionate conservatives are gushing with taxpayer money, only to be outdone by the bleeding hearts, who are, well, hemorrhaging cash. What is needed this Thanksgiving is a Pilgrim reality check. When the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth late in the year with winter coming on and no shelter, did they get a special housing bailout? And when the Pilgrims started to run out of food that first winter, was their a food bailout? No. And some of them died you say. True, but their trials certainly put our in perspective.

As my pastor, Doug Wilson, is fond of saying, when the Pilgrims came to New England, there were no jobs, just a lot of work to be done. And today, even if you lose your job or your business or your clients, there’s still a lot of work to be done, but it requires learning, the hardest work of all, learning a new profession or way of doing business or perhaps just learning to work for someone new. Certainly, we all need to learn to live within our means. We rode the bull for a long time. We stayed on, focused, and the crowd went wild, but now that we’re off, we’re going to feel the bruises. And we’re going to have to learn how to walk again. And, despite what the politicians would have us believe, this isn’t the time for wheelchairs. Of course the politicians would also have us believe that our current dilemma is really much too complicated to speak of in these terms. But is that really true? Perhaps all of our contemporary anxieties, the economy, politics and homeland security, could use a dose of Pilgrim reality. After all, they dealt with the same basic human needs that we do.

William Bradford put it elegantly, saying that when the Pilgrims landed for the first time at Provincetown Harbor, “They had now no friends to welcome them nor inns to entertain or refresh their weather-beaten bodies; no houses or much less towns to repair to, to seek for succor.” On the contrary, they had every worldly reason to fear, arriving so far north at the onset of winter, with dwindling supplies and without having even chosen a place for their settlement. Yet, when they beheld the “hideous and desolate wilderness” of the cape, as Bradford described it, they fell on their knees and thanked God. Of course they thanked Him for their survival of the journey that was past. But what better time to thank God than when they now needed Him the most, contemplating the great journey of taming the land that lay before them? Thus the Pilgrims’ economic reality consisted merely of the land, their own hands, the Indians, and the grace of God. Those last two being often one and the same.

And more than the fear of deprivation, the Pilgrims also dealt with political uncertainty. We tend to think that the separatist congregation members (the Pilgrims) were the only passengers on the Mayflower, but in fact they were just 41 of the 102 on board. And when they reached the shores of America, encountering strong winds and shoals, which prevented them from moving south to their intended destination, some among the non-Separatists (the “strangers,” as they were called) realized that their governing charter under the London Company was no longer valid and so they threatened to strike out on their own, to scatter in the time of greatest need for mutual protection and cooperation. Therefore, in the face of this weakening unity, the Pilgrim leaders drafted the Mayflower Compact, reaffirming the colonist’s unity under God and under their king, enlisting the strangers support, and fostering good will not only by their own leadership, but by their mutual submission in accordance with the Compact. For the Pilgrims, as for their nation building descendents 150 years later, it was join or die.

But furthermore there was the fear of not knowing what lay beyond the dark veil of the forest. Having entered Provincetown Harbor on a Saturday, November 11th, 1620, the next day, being Sunday, they did not embark, but held meetings and prayer. Then there was wash to do on Monday and other chores, such as fixing the shallop, the small boat for taking everyone ashore. But by Tuesday, Miles Standish couldn’t wait any longer and lead on an exploration party onto the cape. After only half a day walking down the beach they spied half a dozen Indians walking toward them, who then fled into the woods. They followed them into the forest for several days, discovering an Indian grave, in which they found a bow and arrow, and later they found a great stash of corn. And still later they discovered some sawed planks and a ship’s kettle and the remains of a blonde-haired sailor. What thoughts for their future must these discoveries inevitably brought to mind?

It is commonly thought that the Pilgrims faced no danger from the Indians when landing at Plymouth due to the plague that had recently decimated the great tribes. However the Pilgrims knew better than we of their danger from the Indians that remained, because the history of relations had not been pleasant. In 1611, the Englishman Edward Harlow abducted close to half a dozen Indians and killed at least as many. He abducted one Epenow, who later escaped with the help his tribe. And in 1614 another Englishman, Thomas Hunt took dozens of Indians captive, attempting to sell them in Spain for 20 pounds each. And just that previous summer in 1620, one Thomas Dermer was exploring the New England Coast where almost everywhere he went he was under attack, because that very spring an English ship had arrived at Narraganset Bay, invited a bunch of Indians aboard, and slew them in cold blood.

Arriving amid this regretful situation, anything could happen, and as the Pilgrims numbers dwindled that first winter with the Indians watching all around, they must have wondered what would happen as soon as they reached their weakest point. Though his tribe had but a tiny fraction of its former glory, Massasoit could still gather at least 60 braves. Thus, the Pilgrims’ reality was that they had to make every effort to “live peaceably with all men” if they wanted to survive, not without maintaining the appearance of strength to their best ability; but to maintain peace was life itself and to be sought at the cost of feeding and entertaining their “savage” neighbors on more than one occasion when they would have rather kept to themselves.

Are there not multiple lessons for us today in the Pilgrims’ venture, which was in the end incredibly successful: the establishment of a community in which they and their descendents could serve the Lord in freedom in such a bounteous land? Today, on the coasts of the 21st century, we are witnessing financial storms which prevent many of us from reaching our intended destination. But these are the least of our worries. Within our evangelical ship there are strangers, fellow Christians who do not share a vision for a faithful church in America, who walk without a common purpose, and who need our leadership. Also, there is a new chief in the area with a funny name and many young warriors, whom we have not always treated well. It is not with him that we must fight directly and certainly not on his terms. But we must fight our own errant hearts to maintain gratitude and unity amongst ourselves. And we must likewise fall on our knees and thank God for how far he has taken us and how far we have yet to go. We must ask him to grow the His covenant people in the new wilderness of America.

Conversation with a Buddhist

I went to Dallas for some training for my new job and on the way back I saw this lady walking around in the airport with only a quarter inch of gray hair and what looked like a hospital gown. I immediately thought she was a cancer patient. But then later when I boarded the plane and found myself sitting next to her, I learned that she was a Buddhist monastic, living with about 10 others in a monastery in Newport, Washington, just north of Spokane. It was actually she who struck up the conversation. I was a shy at first, thinking she might possibly have Aids and it would be embarrassing for me to ask her about her haircut and garb, but as soon as she introduced herself we talked for the entire one-and-one-half hour flight.

I asked her how she came to be a Buddhist and she said that she was a history major in college like me. She was drawn to Buddhism because its teaching made sense and helped her. Then, after she was already a Buddhist, she became deeply concerned about her own integrity. For example, she would complain about the lies of government and big business, while thinking her own little white lies wouldn’t hurt anyone. So finally she decided to seek self control through the discipline of the monastery, which in fact helped her, she said. And I could tell that she now had peaceful soul. She had walked and smiled, when I had seen her earlier, like someone at rest, resigned to her condition, not fighting the world. And given her shaved head and simple frock, her lack of care for material things couldn’t be more obvious. Yet, she wasn’t afraid to ask me about my new job and whether I thought it was honest. I liked her immediately.

I told her about the Trinity and how worshiping the Triune God allows people to live in both unity and diversity. We talked about Islam and gender roles and the role of politics in believer’s life and the history of evangelicalism in America. And we talked about Buddhism’s cyclical view of history and I asked her how such a world with no creator had any meaning. In fact it was I that most often set the course of the conversation, while she would question me at times and object gracefully at others. It occurred to me that she was probably doing what Buddhists do, which is to avoid confrontation and rather probe for weakness. She asked me how I could think of men and women in such “stereotypical” roles, but when I didn’t balk at the term, but continued to explain marriage as I had heard Doug Wilson do so many times and also continued to tell her my own experiences (not with marriage of course!), so as to remain vulnerable, we eventually began to get along quite well—me and Thubten Chodron, as she was called. The tension with which we started the conversation vanished. Yet I didn’t ask her any personal questions, because I wanted to respect her age, but toward the end of the conversation she told me that her last name had been Wilson. And she also said something very strange and telling. She said that she used to wonder why she had a body, why she should be white and born in America, why these hands and this color hair, etc. She had wanted rather to identify with the entire human race. I responded by saying that I believed God placed us in families and ethnic groups and nations for a reason and that these were something to glory in, but that our identity has countless levels. One may in one context be proud of his identity as a Wilson or a Becktell and an American and also be proud of his identity as a Westerner or a son of Adam or a creature for that matter. Everyone in fact is much more diverse, biologically speaking than we realize. Each one of us has eight great grandparents and sixteen great, great grandparents and so on.

The plane began to land and so I told her what a pleasure it was to meet her and asked if she had a Facebook. She did not, because she was worried that such means of communication would inhibit true face to face relationships. It occurred to me that living in a monastery, humming in tune with the universe might limit true face to face relationships as well, but I thought better of it. She probably has developed a number of close relationships with her peers and students.

As she left I wondered to myself and to God, whether I had been a good witness. It almost bothered me that we had gotten along so well. We shared so many of the same values, peace, simplicity and taking responsibility, and yet she believed not in God, but in “humankind,” as she would say, and humankind’s own humanity to man, our ability to recognize and alleviate the pain of others. It occurred to me that the only way I might influence her, so far along in her pursuit of “enlightenment,” was for my God to vindicate me. I had told her what I could. It was not for me to press home some uncomfortable point to a kind woman, much older than myself. There are sometimes when a Christian meets his equal in terms of someone who loves peace and wants to do what’s right and who seems self-satisfied. And perhaps only the passage of time and the manifest blessing of God on our lives can influence these.