United by Squanto’s Faith: Thanksgiving

By Published on November 25, 2015

It’s not really a custom to buy kids things for Thanksgiving. But some of us like to illuminate Advent, and counter the crazy commercialism building up to Christmas, with reminders of what the season means.

Advent calendars that slowly build anticipation of the coming of the Christ child are a lovely means to do this, but I’ve come across another. It’s a beautiful little book which I plan to share with my children this week, to shed a spiritual light in the depths of “Black Friday”: Squanto and the Miracle of Thanksgiving, by beloved Christian writer Eric Metaxas.

The book tells in a simple, sincere, and charming way, the story of a Native American boy whose life recaps some of the most significant themes and enduring moral challenges of the American experience, especially ethnic diversity, the quest for justice and religious freedom.

In language that children can accept, but without sugar-coating the ugly reality, Squanto tells the story of a Native American boy kidnapped by European traders and sold as a slave — torn apart from his family and his culture, from a village that is depopulated by the spread of European diseases. It was those very diseases that would claim the lives of millions of Native Americans, making possible the European conquest of North and South America.

 

Read the article “United by Squanto’s Faith: Thanksgiving” on theblaze.com.

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