Inspiration has struck!

Did you know that the Pilgrims spent nearly 10 years in Holland before coming to America?  They left England not with the original intent of laying the foundation of the greatest nation to ever grace this broken earth.  They just wanted to get out from under the corruption of the Church of England and escape the persecution they faced for resisting its authority.  Not very romantic, is it?

I'm not sure why they picked Holland.  Maybe the politics of the region led them to believe they'd be left alone there.  Maybe someone had family there.

I want to share a paragraph that I read in a book about the early days of American history that just fascinates me.  This came from a letter written by William Bradford, a man who, though not the pastor of the congregation, had been with them from the beginning and was always considered a leader among them.  These are his reasons for giving up on Holland by the time 1620 rolled around:

"1. Their life (though they never complained of it) was so hard that almost no others were coming from England to join them..., 2. Their life was aging them prematurely (everyone old enough to hold a job worked 12 to 15 hours a day), and was so debilitating them that, should the time come when they would have to move again, they might not physically be able to do so, 3. Their children were also being worn down, and many were being drawn away by the lures of the world around them, 4. They had cherished a 'great hope and inward zeal' of at least playing a part, if as only a stepping stone for others, in the carrying forth of the Light of Christ to remote parts of the world."

Can you guess which sentence in the paragraph above sparked an idea for a new story?  Ok, ok, I'll just tell you.  It's sentence number 3 about their children.  I read that and thought to myself, "Aha!  They were humans like us!  They had the same challenges in raising their kids to love God--just like us!" 

I forget this when my kids bring home worksheets every Thanksgiving with silly-looking Pilgrims donning huge black hats and shaking hands with Squanto.  They bury the fish with the corn kernels and the next thing you know, it's time to eat!  Happy Thanksg-er, uh, Happy Turkey Day!

The Pilgrims become cartoon characters to us, ceasing to be real. But if you dig around through history, you'll find that they were, in fact very real.  Both in their superhero-like abilities to deal with hardship, and in their weaknesses, of which they had in abundance too. 

This is what makes a story really great, I think.  I don't need my hero or heroine to be so pure and flawless that his/her perfection is completely unattainable and thereby unrelatable.  In the same way, I want my villain to have some redeeming qualities because we ALL have a little bit of darkness in us, right?   

To think of the Pilgrims, or any other historical figures as any less complex than that is to misunderstand history.  And to miss out on a great story.

So, inspiration has struck.  I'm living in the world of 17th Century Holland, at least in my mind.  And when you're a teenage girl who has lived a brutally challenging life and you finally get a taste of freedom, who is the villain?  Why it's your parents, of course, who want you to stay the course of a faithful life of servitude and sacrifice.  Or maybe...it's the hunky guy who calls himself a Christian but who only lives for himself and diminishes your parents and their crazy notion to go to the New World.

Will she she make the choice in the end that honors God?  Will she end up on the Mayflower with her family?  I can't even say for sure because the characters and the plot tend to take on a life of their own as they develop in my mind.  But one thing I DO know.  They will be human.  They will breath life into a group of people that seem plastic and cartoonish even to those of us today who know our American history.

As a Christian and an American who has benefited in so many ways from the toil and sacrifice of these 102 brave souls who left such a giant thumbprint on the world, it's the least I can do.