The Pilgrims’ Progress – Sunset Observer #43

December 2, 2016 Victor El-Khouri 2 Comments

…By Whitney Farmer

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Un Pop Culture

Now I know why we eat turkey on Thanksgiving. The Indians brought four of them to dinner at that first Thanksgiving.

More importantly, I know what is a pilgrim. I thought that I did before, but I was wrong.

I understood this as I wrote on the board in front of the English class and had a new understanding that our Pilgrims with a capital ‘P’ and these newcomers from everywhere but here were from the same tribe. All had fled FROM something TO something. All had to become strangers in a strange land because of their faith. All had left behind a life that was perhaps at the moment easier – or at least simpler – but the view of the horizon in their homeland had become black.

They are the ones “…who travel to a sacred place for religious reasons…” as one definition reads.

Perhaps America can be described as sacred if it is a place that provides a safe haven and welcome to those who are scattered on the wind.

To quote Moses:

“The Lord your God administers justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing. Therefore love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

A wise default strategy in State-crafting is to NOT directly oppose the Almighty, note to Nation. It is perhaps a terrific idea to err on the side of caution.

And notably the Almighty’s will turns out to be a terrific idea, not the slap from an impatient parent when we don’t play nice in the sandbox.

Anti-immigration pundits describe a world wherein there are immoveable resource constraints. Rather than differentiating between legal and illegal alien status, a blurring is occurring which aggregates everyone who came after the ME who is speaking as an extra mouth to feed.

But that mouth is connected to a brain which is connected to hands and feet and heart. Resource and capacity constraints only are present when innovation in not. Countries in turmoil decry a brain drain of their best minds and future capacity when their governments can’t guarantee a hope and a future for their finest citizens. Shouldn’t countries that are viewed as the Promised Land display “Welcome” and “Vacancy” neon signs at the borders to take advantage of the most versatile natural resource available in the history of the world? Once upon a time, seeds were just seeds and rotten dinosaurs were just gooey black muck that kept seeds from growing, until these natural capacities encountered the creative power of human minds.  What treasures are housed in the minds and hearts of these newcomers…? Which one is an Einstein or a Tesla?

In the short run, natives like me might be faced with challenges that could be defined on a bad day in America – which in the global picture still might be described as luxurious – as a resource constraint. But a more historically successful threat to maintaining an exalted standard of life is rest and relaxation. The worst we could do for ourselves is to be content and to stop moving.

Every human civilization that has risen into dominance began to decline the day after the victory celebration. Every. One. The fixed capacity that anti-immigrant pundits decry becomes the desolate peak rather than a step that creates pressure and can spur innovation. And with that innovation, another step is added to the rung and a higher perspective is available to whoever is brave and not lazy.

It’s true that there is a risk of terrorism that could be encountered with opening our home to a wave of newcomers.

It’s true that we might save their lives, only to have them invite us to dinner. We might arrive with our women and younger siblings, prepared to break bread. And rather than receive hospitality, they might kill us all with our own knives. Then they might take our heads and hang them as trophies at their homes on pikes as a sign to everyone of their capacity for brutality.

You know, exactly like Miles Standish, Venerated Pilgrim Captain, did to Pecksuot and his band of the Massachusett tribe. Yes, the same tribe that gave the name to the colony and then State where the capital ‘P’ Pilgrims had landed. Standish left the head of Pecksuot on the pike at the Plymouth colony until it had stopped smelling as a warning to anyone to not mess with these newcomers.  Apparently it worked, though we understandably have no more stories in our popular cultural legends of any other Thanksgiving dinners between Indians and Pilgrims beyond the first one.

Too bad, I guess.

Quote of the Blog, from “The Pilgrim’s Progress” by John Bunyon: “A man there was, though some did count him mad, the more he cast away the more he had.”

Image by William Blake: ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress – Christian Reading in His Book (Plate 2, 1824-27)’.

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