Echoes From the Campfire

You must meet each challenge with your feet planted firmly on the ground, standing as tall as you are, and never panic.”
              –Lou Bradshaw  (Hickory Jack)

    “Tremble before Him, all the earth. The world also is firmly established, It shall not be moved.”
              –1 Chronicles 16:30 (NKJV)
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Happy Columbus Day!  That’s right, Columbus Day.  It is not Indigenous Peoples Day.  This is the day (actually October 12) when Columbus landed in the New World.  From that time forward exploration began and the New World was settled.  It took time, effort, blood and tears.  There were issues to be dealt with through the next couple of centuries until we get to the present.  Now people are moaning, “the poor native peoples.”  Yes, things could have been done differently but without the Europeans coming to America, and they would have come if it wasn’t Columbus, it would have been someone else.  Call it “Fate,” but I choose to call it Providence.
    I like what Patrick Wastella said in his response to Tara Ross’ blog.

         “It is as if we are educating individuals to look upon a beautiful, centuries-old, stained-glass window in order to find and judge the faults in it.  And upon finding the faults, the judges throw rocks through it, leaving it in ruins.  Is the window perfect?  Of course not.  But rather than dismissing it upon finding the faults, could we educate individuals to look upon the centuries-old window and acknowledge those faults while also admiring what the creator was attempting within the limits of his era?  Would it be better to train our youth to look upon something and to ask themselves, ‘How can this be improved?” rather than to judge it as imperfect and to discard it?'”  (Devin Foley)

Columbus was not a perfect person–there is not such a thing.  But take the time to read his diaries; he realized his name meant “Christ-bearer.”  He required missions and schools to be started to educate the “Indians” in the way of the gospel.  Those who proclaim the loudest do not care that thousands were to gain the knowledge of Jesus Christ, only the fact that the many died from the “white man’s disease.”
    One other thing to consider is that the “Columbian Exchange” went both ways, and for some reason those with the agenda only seem to talk of the negative.  What about the architecture, the language, fruits and grains, horses and cattle that came because of Spanish and other European exploration?  Plus, the common theory that syphilis was taken to the Old World during the exchange.
    So, today I salute Christopher Columbus!  The brave man who dared face the unknown waters to the West of Europe and by change–hardly, by Providence–discovered what we now call the Americas.  By the way, are we going to change the name of America, since it was named for Amerigo Vespucci?