Another Thanksgiving approaches. It's that day when families across America gather to watch parades and competitive sports on television and to overindulge in stuffed turkeys, creamed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and rich pies.

Every schoolchild in America knows the story of the original Thanksgiving. In 1621 in Plymouth, émigré English Calvinists struggled to make their way in the harsh climate of this New World. Wampanoag Indians helped them, teaching them to grow corn. In gratitude the Pilgrims invited the Native Americans to join in their harvest feast. On this secular holiday, with our extended families around us at the Thanksgiving table, we may be moved to give thanks not only for the feast but also for our families, our country, and our many other gifts.

But this modern version of Thanksgiving would horrify the devout Pilgrims and Puritans who sailed to America in the 17th century. The holiday that gave rise to Thanksgiving - a "public day" that they observed regularly - was almost the precise opposite of today's celebration. It was not secular, but deeply religious. At its center was not an extravagant meal, but a long fast. And its chief concern was not bounty but redemption: to examine the faults in oneself - and one's community - with an eye toward spiritual improvement.

A thanksgiving day, as actually celebrated by 17th-century Americans, was a communal day of fasting, meditation, and supplication to God. Both thanksgiving and fast days - jointly referred to as "public days" - served as replacements for Roman Catholic holidays (from "holydays") such as Christmas, Easter, and saints' days, which the Puritans rejected along with stained glass and the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. This was part of their goal of simplifying and purifying the rituals of the Christian Church, which explains the term "Puritan." When they emigrated they brought the public-day tradition from Calvinist Europe.

Thanksgiving's real roots, then, are deeper and more spiritual than the popular image - and lie in Europe, not America.

Colonial governments called for public days several times a year, often in response to political, social, agricultural, and meteorological changes, especially disasters. Though the Puritans were aware of randomness in nature, they tended to see a sign of divine vengeance in frightening occurrences such as droughts, epidemics of smallpox, and children's deaths. During a drought, for instance, the court in Boston would declare a public fast day, calling for people to repent for their sins and ask God for help. Once the drought was over the colony would share in a public day of thanks. On these days families prayed at home, reading Scripture aloud and singing psalms, and then attended compulsory lecture services at their meeting houses. In the cycle of fast and thanksgiving days, the community alternately pleaded with and expressed thanks to God.Continued...

http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2007/11/18/the...