Friends
It’s a special week for me. It’s time for the annual reunion of my father’s family, and this is
no small affair. Every year, the family gathers to remember our heritage and keep our connections. Last year, I had the honor of serving as the program speaker for our reunion. If you have an interest in history, particularly Scots-Irish ancestry, check out the video of my speech by clicking HERE.
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“And now these three remain, faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
1 Corinthians 13:13 – NIV
It’s time for the returning. It’s time for the gathering, the gathering of the clan. It’s time to return to the Upstate, to the rolling hills and gentle valleys of the Piedmont region of South Carolina, to the soil that my ancestors claimed as their own for the very first time in their history.
It all began in the woods and fields of lower Greenville county. My forefathers and mothers laid roots down in that red clay soil, and those roots remain today.
Our family’s life in America began on those fledgling farms they forged in the Upstate, but the story of our clan began long before their landing in the Charleston harbor in 1772, long before they stepped on that tiny ship in the Irish port of Larne.
In the summer of 1772, The clan packed up their possessions and walked away from their homes in County Antrim, weary of the political, economic, and religious persecution that plagued their daily lives. Setting their sights on a new opportunity, they sought freedom in the American colonies.
But the story didn’t start on Irish soil. No, our story started long before that sentinel moment, long before the clan boarded that tiny ship bound for America.
The story began more than two thousand years ago with a band of nomads who roamed the hills and valleys of central Europe. These Celtic wanderers were powerful warriors with a penchant for roaming and an absolute aversion to any type of centralized authority. They were fiercely independent, ardently loyal, and adamantly opposed to being told what to do. (Yes, I know. The apples of today didn’t fall far from that ancient tree!)
Their thirst for freedom pushed this band of wanderers further and further up the continent, eventually crossing the waters into Brittania, steadily inching northward with every subsequent generation. Ever northward, they pushed, until they ran out of land, forcing them to lay claim to the rugged terrain that would later be known as the Scottish lowlands.
Still, their journey didn’t end there. Poverty and religious persecution propelled them to cross the straits of the Irish Sea, making a hopeful new start on the farmland of Northern Ireland. For more than a century, they lived as tenants on someone else’s land, planting crops, shepherding livestock, raising their families, attending their churches. Yet eventually, the adverse conditions of poverty and persecution overwhelmed them, forcing them to abandon their homes once again. This time, they turned their eyes westward, fixing their gaze, and their hopes, on a new life in America.
From the moment they set foot on the Carolina shores, these stalwart Presbyterians became true Americans, embracing this land as their own. When war broke out four years later, their warrior heritage served them well in the battle for American Independence, and subsequent generations have served in every major conflict thereafter.
Today, the clan is spread across the country, and around the world, but that doesn’t stop them from coming. They return on the third weekend of July to the place where our American life began, to the Presbyterian hous of worship that the family founded in 1786. Since 1899, they have gathered, gathered to worship, gathered to remember, gathered to re-connect. This year marks the 125th Peden Reunion at the historic Fairview Presbyterian Church in Fountain Inn, South Carolina. The cousins will gather and worship together. They will sing hymns and tell tall tales. They will eat, and laugh, and catch up on each other’s news. Above all, they will keep the covenant of remembrance, remembering our mutual heritage, the sacrifices of our ancestors, the faith that still runs deep within us, and the morals, ethics, and values that have remained strong throughout the centuries..
Yes, the clan will gather on Saturday, and we will remember.
PRAYER
O Gracious Heavenly Father, thank You for the family, for the faith, for the love that sustains us. Help us keep the covenant of remembrance, always remembering Your bountiful blessings, Your faithful presence, and Your redeeming love. May we stand strong together, keeping the faith, abiding in Your Love, sharing Your hope.
In the Faithful Name of Jesus, we pray,
Amen
Blessings,
Anita
-APS 7/15/2024
Faith Beyond Sight 