A couple of summers ago, I went to an outdoor dinner and concert in our small town. The setting overlooked a watery meadow where the West River flows out of the Vermont mountains and joins the Connecticut River on its way to the Atlantic Ocean. The felicity of the geography has made it a meeting, gathering place, and trading center for millennia. The short growing season and otherwise hilly terrain has kept it small, though nonetheless useful.
There's something going on at this spot every weekend in the summer. Outdoor tents get assembled over large communal tables. Kids are running around. Food trucks show up. For me, it's humans at our best.
What drew me to this in particular was that jazz/blues artist, Dr. Samuel Waymon, was to perform on an outdoor stage. We don't often attract this level of talent to our lovely insignificance. It was a fund raiser for our local NAACP so we got better than we deserved.
There was to be an organizational meeting beforehand. I'd like to say I was there to support the difficult work of social justice in the whitest state in the union, but I was as shallow as the water in the Meadows that evening, and just there to soak in summer and music.
Susan and I sat at an empty table which soon filled with neighbors we hadn't met. Among them was the pastor of the classic white-steepled Congregationalist Church in the center of town, built by Pilgrim descendents, of which he was this generation's representative. He was joined by his young adult son. Also accompanying the pastor was his professional colleague, the Iman of the sole Muslim congregation in town.
The Muslim and Congregationalist assemblies I learned shared the same white-steepled building. Being of faiths with sabbaths on different days of the week, combined with New England frugality, the coincidence was pleasing. The Iman was joined by several of his congregants, all of them from Afghanistan. Given that Susan is a first-generation descendent of Polish Jews who arrived in the US literally days before Hitler invaded Poland, and I'm the descendent of Irish Catholics having fled no doubt deserved punishments for both criminal and insurgent activity, others at the table were here as descendents of those brought unwilling and in shackles by other immigrants including some of our ancestors, we all that evening met in peace and outreach of friendship.
The program started with several people who identified themselves as Abenaki, the nation occupying this land, and in particular, this lovely place, when the first Europeans arrived. They generously welcomed us, especially given that none of us had asked their permission to settle here. The leader introduced a traditional song in the Abenaki language. It was sung by travelers on the river as they approached another settlement of indigenous people. He told us different groups had their own songs which allowed them to be recognized before they were seen, and to signal they had no hostile intent.
I received their song as a gift and a blessing.
Potato stuffing.
Grandma, whose Irish immigrant family arrived in New Bedford, MA, thirty miles and 300 years distant from the pilgrims' arrival in Plymouth, MA. stuffed her Thanksgiving turkey with a potato mixture instead of a bread mixture. Once again this Thanksgiving, in remembrance of my grandmother's adaptation to having been a stranger in a land belonging to others, I made potato stuffing according to her recipe.
Having gotten better than I deserve, may I be as generous to the next stranger as these Abenaki people are to me.
Warm regards,
Francis Sopper
REFERENCED IN THIS LETTER:
Dr. Samuel Waymon: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0915502/
NAACP: https://windhamnaacp.org/
deserved: https://www.resort.tryon.com/press/official-video-for-sam-waymons-baltimore
a stranger in a land belonging to others: https://biblehub.com/kjv/exodus/2.htm