Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 175 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom.

The First Thanksgiving

Thank you for joining us for our 7 days a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 175 of our Trek, and yesterday we located the 7-mile markers to boost your gratitude. Today I will share additional details around the Blessings of the First Thanksgiving. If you miss any of our Wisdom-Trek episodes, please go to Wisdom-Trek.com to listen to them and read the daily journal.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at Home2 in Charlotte, North Carolina. This episode is being released the Sunday before Thanksgiving, and if things go according to our plan, we should have most of the leaves harvested. I will update you with those details once it is accomplished.

The sinusitis or cold that I have been battling for over a week now is finally starting to wane although it has really zapped my energy this week, which is unusual. I spoke with my brother Jack today, and his family has had the same type of cold. He also mentioned that it has really drained him of energy also. It is good to know that soon I will be back to normal, or at least normal for me.

It is time to head out on our trek for today. As we hike, it is a time to remember all the blessings in our own lives and discover how the first Thanksgiving Day was established. I will share this story with you so that we can remember it, gain wisdom from it, and apply it to creating our living legacy. Our story today is…

Remember the Blessings of the First Thanksgiving

This week Americans across the country will sit down and devour their turkey dinner with all the trimmings, including pumpkin pie. Some will bow their heads and say a humble "thank you" to God for their blessings of the year while others will just dive in and eat. Regardless of your family's practice, most people agree that this is one of our country's most popular and enjoyable holidays. But how many of us talk about the history of this particular holiday that makes it so unique? Let's do that right now!

Thanksgiving is our oldest national holiday and is the only holiday in the United States decreed by a joint resolution of both houses of Congress and yearly proclamations by our presidents. Each proclamation has expressed gratitude to God, making Thanksgiving the only holiday of a religious nature that seems to be politically correct today. Thanksgiving is a holiday that can be celebrated without religious reservation by Jews, Christians (Roman Catholics and Protestants of all denominations), Muslims, or, for that matter, followers of any religion practiced in the United States. While a few other countries have similar celebrations, Thanksgiving as we know it is a holiday observed only in the United States. It truly is unique.

From our earliest days in school, we have heard the story of that first Thanksgiving. Having arrived in the United States after a very difficult sea voyage that took much longer than expected, a group of 102 people (44 men and 58 women and children) made their way to shore. It was on Dec. 21, 1620, and the bitter cold of winter had already set in.

They took shelter for the winter in a makeshift building that the men had gone ashore and built during the previous weeks. They had intended to land in Jamestown, VA, where friends and relatives were expecting them and had made arrangements for getting them settled. But because of ship repairs and problems of navigation that resulted in their being considerably off course and spending several extra weeks trying to find Virginia, the ship finally dropped anchor for the winter at Plymouth, Mass., far north of their intended destination.