Worship Christ, The Newborn King

Adoration of the Shepherds (1622)

Gerard (Gerrit) van Honthorst (1590-1656)

Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne.

Thanksgiving be unto our God

Let us give specific thanks today, specifically to God.

"... Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen."

Revelation 7:12























Old Woman Praying (1656)
Nicolaes Maes (1634-1693)
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Re-bunking Thanksgiving

Today, I ran across a number of very interesting articles by Dr. Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs, historian and former Chief Curator of the "Plimoth Plantation" in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

In his essays, Bangs "re-bunks" Thanksgiving. That is to say, he reclaims a number of elements of the traditional Thanksgiving story that have been supposedly "debunked" by revisionist historian. Most significantly, he counters the pernicious and oft-repeated claim that the holiday has been a secular celebration since its outset, and that the first "Thanks" were given to the Natives, instead of God.

Here is an excerpt:

"Our knowledge of the 1621 Thanksgiving comes from Winslow and Bradford. Winslow's choice of words, understood by his contemporaries, implies to us that the Pilgrims gave thanks to God for their preservation and for the plenty that gave hope for the future. Winslow specifically tells us that the colonists sat down with their Native neighbors and enjoyed several days of peaceful rejoicing together. It is a history with potent symbolism, and it needs neither apology nor distortion."

Bangs approach is scholarly and non-sectarian. He counters historical fictions from various interest groups -- secularist, libertarian, and fundamentalist among others -- who have sought to advance their worldview by misrepresenting the facts of this central celebration of American life.

Also, he puts turkey back on the first menu!

Here is essay #1, on George Mason University's History News Network:

The Truth About Thanksgiving Is that the Debunkers Are Wrong

The above article contains a link to a second, much longer part of the essay on Sail 1620, the award-winning website of the Society of Mayflower Descendants in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, the link within the article didn't seem to work, so I will provide it here:

Thanksgiving on the Net: Roast Bull with Cranberry Sauce

ADDENDUM:

I later ran across another article on the same subject, by the same author, which is cleanly-formatted and more concise. You might read this article first to get an overview of the subject, and then move on to the preceding articles if you would like to flesh out the details:

A Historian Looks Anew at Thanksgiving













The Mayflower on Her Arrival in Plymouth Harbor
By William Formsby Halsall (1841-1919).
Painted in Massachusetts, 1882.

Misha Quint performs Bach's Air in the G String

Air on the G String
Johann Sebastian Bach
(31 March 1685 – 28 July 1750)

Quint lovingly burnishes each passage of Bach's timeless composition. His unique rubato performance and throbbing vibrato evoke a rawness of emotion not usually associated with this piece. Bravo!

Plague premonitions

"Besides technologically conceived viruses, cyberspace is an amenable medium for what Douglas Rushkoff calls "media viruses," which refer to the ways ideas infect the masses at rapid speeds and in novel ways through electronic media. The delivery system of the Internet makes possible the dissemination of ideas that bypasses the traditional intermediaries of editorial control, paper publishing, material transport, and so on. Of course, this can be used for good or ill; but particularly virulent ideas can pollute people's minds in unprecedented ways through cyberspace."

Douglas Groothuis, The Soul in Cyberspace, 1997

Not a Hallowe'en costume

It is well-known that The Plague Doctor eschews All Hallows' Eve.  My costume is quite functional and serves me in my work.

My wide-brimmed hat marks me as a physician, as the miter might betray a priest.

My spectacles are unique to my brotherhood. They possess one rose-tinted lens, it is true, but my outlook is not positively skewed thereby. My Hope is reasonable, after all, and the other lens may be green or blue. My world view is anaglyphic, at least, with more dimension than most.

My mask is filled with frankincense and myrrh, to ward off foul humor and foul humors.

My coat and breeches protect me from the nip of the pest and Die Pest also.

My cane serves as scientific probe, conductor's baton, last-ditch defense.  I pray I shall not bear it in vain.

And thus I am accoutered for my work amidst The Plague.

Reformation day

Today we celebrate Martin Luther's inspired use of hammer and nail in October of 1517. The historicity of the event came under attack in the 1960s, but supporting evidence has resurfaced within the last few years, as detailed in the following article:

"On the doors of the Wittenberg churches"

Xenopsylla cheopis

Xenopsylla cheopis

A defense of the plague doctor

"Recent scholarship... has repeated Boccaccio’s portrayal of the doctors during the Black Death as futile and helpless. This is an erroneous interpretation, as there is indisputable evidence of professionalism and practicality in the tractates of 1348. The wills of townspeople in Bologna during the height of the epidemic further demonstrate that doctors, professors of medicine, and barber-surgeons were staying in town and tending the sick."

"Boccaccio and the doctors: medicine and compassion in the face of plague"

Yersinia pestis

Yersinia pestis

Deadly poison

 "All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness."
James 3:7-9 

The virulence of the pest

"Moreover, the virulence of the pest was the greater by reason that intercourse was apt to convey it from the sick to the whole, just as fire devours things dry or greasy when they are brought close to it. Nay, the evil went yet further, for not merely by speech or association with the sick was the malady communicated to the healthy with consequent peril of common death; but any that touched the cloth of the sick or aught else that had been touched or used by them, seemed thereby to contract the disease...

The rags of a poor man who had died of the disease being strewn about the open street, two hogs came thither, and after, as is their wont, no little trifling with their snouts, took the rags between their teeth and tossed them to and fro about their chaps; whereupon, almost immediately, they gave a few turns, and fell down dead, as if by poison, upon the rags which in an evil hour they had disturbed."

-- Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron

A call to persevere

"But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. They said to you, "In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires." These are the men who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.

But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.

Be merciful to those who doubt; snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh."

Jude 1:17-23

Boccaccio quote

"Tis humane to have compassion on the afflicted and as it shews well in all, so it is especially demanded of those who have had need of comfort and have found it in others." -- Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron

The weakness of God

"Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty"
1 Corinthians 1:25-27