Psalm 78:23-29
23 Yet he commanded the skies above
and opened the doors of heaven,
24 and he rained down on them manna to eat
and gave them the grain of heaven.
25 Man ate of the bread of the angels;
he sent them food in abundance.
26 He caused the east wind to blow in the heavens,
and by his power he led out the south wind;
27 he rained meat on them like dust,
winged birds like the sand of the seas;
28 he let them fall in the midst of their camp,
all around their dwellings.
29 And they ate and were well filled,
for he gave them what they craved.
An American Manna. Comparing Today and Many Yesterdays Ago.
This is a study of Tolerance.
We have all heard the story of the starving Puritans had the beach wash lobster ashore in response to prayer. And declared this is so ugly - it had to be evil. I see no historical documentation for this. I do for a fact know Oliver Cromwell would put a family to shame, and or in stocks, for eating ham or celebrating Christmas. A season I particularly enjoy.
The lobster story is probably utter rubbish.
So what about not eating lobster?
- Native Americans used lobsters to fertilize their crops and bait their fishing hooks.
- Because when the first European settlers reached North America, lobsters were so plentiful that they would reportedly wash ashore in piles up to 2 feet high.
- Dirt-cheap because they were so copious, lobsters were routinely fed to prisoners, apprentices, slaves and children during the colonial era and beyond. In Massachusetts, some indentured servants allegedly sought to avoid lobster-heavy diets by including stipulations in their contracts that they would only be served the shellfish twice a week.
L. MENCKEN once said, wrongly, “Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”
It just really might mean - Puritanism is the study of work/works to death and intolerance.
Jamestown ended in cannibalism. We never suffer much over the minors and young people who made up of most of the people on the ships coming to the colonies of England. But the indentured servants bones show they had their shoulders worn away with work. And this is were the cannibalism started - the indentured servants buried not in the grave yard. Between one-half and two-thirds of white immigrants to the American colonies between the 1630s and American Revolution had come under indentured servitude. About 75% were under the age of 25. The truth is a certain small part of the white colonial population of America was brought by force, and a much larger portion came in response to deceit and misrepresentation on the part of the recruiting agents. Kidnapping is recorded and falls clearly into the category of "white slavery."
The early settlers of the English colony Massachusetts included more than 100 graduates of Oxford and Cambridge. One historian termed Massachusetts “the best-educated community the world has ever known.” Puritans read good books and enjoyed music. They drank beer with meals and rum at weddings. Puritans swam and skated, hunted and fished, and played at archery and bowling (as long as the games were not in a public tavern or on Sunday). Puritans had given up on Church, deciding it was beyond their help. They were Not Tolerant of the existing Church. Most weddings in New England were performed not by ministers but by magistrates. Wedding rings, seen as “popish,” were not used.
Within six years of arriving, while still trying to hew out an existence, the Puritans founded a religious college named Harvard. Puritan women were generally literate and often well-read. The only respectable female vocation in Puritan America was managing a household. But that “household”
Families lived together. Generally included large numbers of children, servants, apprentices, indentured servants and even single men and women (who were required to live with families).
Oddly Ivy League education and tolerance did not go together -
There was no religious freedom in colonies of England. Quakers and Baptists were often forced to pay higher taxes or were banished. New England residents who failed to attend worship services on Sunday morning and afternoon were fined or put into stocks. Failing to glorify God for all his good gifts was a sacrilege.
American Puritans were hardworking but not capitalists in the modern sense. They placed common welfare ahead of self-interest and set modest caps on profit-making. Unemployment was virtually nonexistent in New England. A visitor from abroad testified, “In seven years I never saw a beggar.”
Given the high death rate, many, many servants did not live to the end of their terms. In the 18th and early 19th century, numerous Europeans, mostly from outside the British Isles, traveled to the colonies as redemptioners, a particularly harsh form of indenture.
Indentured servitude was a method of increasing the number of colonists, especially in the English and later British colonies. Voluntary colonists and convict labor only provided so many people, and since the journey across the Atlantic was dangerous, other means of encouraging settlement were thought necessary.
It has been estimated that due to the amazingly high rate of death in the early settlers that this country would not have been founded but for the ships continuing to arrive and provide and flood the shores of the United States with more and more people to begin to tame a wilderness and use skills to begin to have shelter and food appropriate for survival.
The countries that tried to Colonize the Eastern Seaboard of the United States and all the people perished were Portugal 1502, Spain 1528, and France 1564. Roanoke in Maine was English and lost in 1587.
Clearly, intolerance was used. The Smithsonian Museum displaying the bones of cannibalism in Jamestown said almost all the early ships died out entirely. It was 40 years of continuous ships arriving that caused the ability for people to begin to survive. The next ships used what the dead people had begun to build.
We are now so hooked into Judgement of our Histories and One More Terrible Tragedy makes us feel guilty and think of endless conversations of National Guilt. Guilt of slavery. Guilt of World War II encampment. Guilt even of Christophe Columbus who was actually imprisoned by King Ferdinand for many years for not bringing back real gold to profit the journey. And we blame him for carrying diseases, but never mention the spice trade to the East had the same problems. His crew just about killed Christopher Columbus.
We seem to ignore the facts of people of antiquity were raised with attitudes of culture and influences of lack of communication, starvation being one of the largest factors of death in their era, and differences in education. Slavery was part of life in the eat or be eaten world.
Not saying that sin wasn't sin, it's just that today we consider the morning after pill of a human being implanted as justifiable.
How can we take this Judgment on and the Guilt? Why would we try? We famously all flapped our wings at Pat Robertson for daring to suggest the Earthquake of Haiti was a generational sin from the 18th century.
TRUTH is obvious! When you hold the Light of Jesus Christ the Lord. Jesus TELLS US IMPLICITLY what to do with flaws, mediocrity, complacence, salmon running with the herd and Sin - Jesus says to acknowledge we are ALL sinners. And His Death wiped us clean of generational anger from God. We need that Salvation Jesus is WILLING to GENEROUSLY GIVE. We have reached the point we just can't believe someone would generously Give. And that Someone is GOD.
Teaching History without regard to Historical perspective - is Incredibly Mind Numbing.
Teaching Guilt without regard to Jesus Christ - is Incredibly Mind Numbing.
Teaching Ongoing guilty without regard to Salvation wanting to Bring His Goodness to Today - is Ignoring the Whole Call of Christ - and Is Incredibly Mind Numbing.
The rest of this post is what people did who were Directly Effected and Affected by the Tragedy of Indentured Servitude that was allowed to be slavery. Instead of vague heaping of more guilt.
What happened to the intolerance to the indentured servants?
When forced into survival mode, people determine where their beliefs truly STAND.
In life we always get choices, usually. Job's wife asked Job to curse God and die.
The survivors of this tremendous loss of life in young people put in indentured servitude - created a country today where we understand the need for freedom, justice and liberty. People of Hope, Faith and Love came to love this country and want her freedoms to remain. The Country is Founded on Justice FOR ALL.
Intolerance failed because Faith, Hope and Love worked to make this system eradicated.
One of our most famous indentured servants is Benjamin Franklin. He was one of 17 children in his family.
He faced a generation with contradictions. A Nation on the brink of huge changes.. He faced extremely hostile treatment in indentured slavery where capital punishment was acceptable - he illegally ran from his indentured servitude and fled to his brother. With this many children and such a small level of support - Benjamin Franklin had to think about how his easy and difficult life styles would merge into his level of ability.
What Benjamin Franklin did for his nation - is what we can bring into our lives - today.
We tend to bemoan the loss of good old days. Just as God was concerned with the treatment of the Children of Israel - smaller families tend to care more about their children. The President of Yale wrote to Ben Franklin and asked him if he believed in Jesus. Mr Franklin wrote back saying Jesus was the best religious president the world had ever seen. And he was not sure that Jesus was divine, but his teachings had led Franklin to have thought about how Jesus would improve his life. Franklin was a survivor and he thought out 13 moral principals that would guide his life.
Just as the colonies that became this nation began to see the people as individuals needing care and the intolerance became tolerance - Ben Franklin aspired to a great life - this might have meant in Puritan times to disown his less favorable aspects. In bravery and fortitude Ben Franklin took his illegitimate son, William and publicly acknowledged the existence of William, who was deemed 'illegitimate' as he was born out of wedlock, and raised him in his household as his son.
Franklin owned 7 slaves in spite of his own servitude. Franklin's own Autobiography spent most of his own time explaining that although he had fallen short of the virtues that Jesus Christ has provided, he felt he had owned most of his success and happiness in the attempt to follow these virtues:
"Temperance. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation."
"Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation."
"Order. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time."
"Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve."
"Frugality. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing."
"Industry. Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions."
"Sincerity. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly."
"Justice. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty."
"Moderation. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve."
"Cleanliness. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation."
"Tranquility. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable."
"Chastity. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation."
"Humility. Imitate Jesus"
Benjamin Franklin had a rather wild ride of a life in a time of virtue. He could have left his memories as just as amazing as they were. But Benjamin Franklin was a great believer in giving back and in compound interest(s). He left sums of money to compound to 23 million dollars in our generation - giving to young students to learn and cities to create harbors.
Ben Franklin wrote an Autobiography and explained himself. Surely a Good Idea.
Franklin could have spent his life complaining about indentured servitude.
Lack of compassion in this societal situation.
The unchristian behaviors of a Christian Nation.
He could have only aggrandized the good life.
What this man did with so many different situations in life - was write his Autobiography to include what studying Jesus has brought him. Not particularly known for being Christian - this is his legacy he wrote about his life.
In his autobiography Franklin wrote, "I hope, therefore, that some of my descendants may follow the example and reap the benefit."
Philippians 3
Not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
12 Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Father God, In this tremendous new era. We pray for the Lord’s hand to be with us.
We ask that we clearly see how our own two small hands can bring Your goodness of Jesus Christ as Lord forth to the solutions of Today.Realizing life is a pendulum and we are in imperfect times and reaching Up to the Lord for His renewal.
We ask that You would fill us with Your Holy Spirit in Your Great Mercy as we want to bring the Joy of Jesus Christ forward. We ask for the Gifts of God. For all who feel silenced in their faith to be able to speak of the Love God has for us in His tremendous goal to save us all and the world.
We ask that we have grateful hearts to see You with awe. Return the hearts of fathers to their sons in new fresh Spirit of love and creativity. The diligence of mothers to the joy in their families. The virtues of Jesus in glee and in fresh wonders. To renew and establish and strengthen, families, marriages, Churches, neighborhoods, States, Nations to the Upward and Great Faith in Jesus Christ Messiah of God. Understanding is a wellspring of life unto Jesus. We pray and say Amen.
♔ Lord Jesus Saves †
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