The three “space shuttles” had been launched simultaneously 8 weeks ago. Those who had signed on as crew members were not exactly what one would call “happy campers.” They had grown increasingly apprehensive as their journey took them further & further into the vastness of a space never before explored by anyone known to them. Crew members’ collective fears were so great, in fact, that their mission commander had good reason to “keep his back covered” while at the same time keeping his eyes & mind focused on what he believed was the right decision to make about the direction his little flotilla was traveling.
Between tense moments of rancor & uncertainty over the past 2 months, the mission commander had no doubt reflected, while he stared at the uncounted stars in the heavens, upon the events in his life which had brought him to this journey. As a boy, he had been fascinated by all the excitement of the commerce taking place in & around his hometown. “The race was definitely on” to see who could be the first to capture the rich prizes of finding a more direct & safer path to the destination sought. So, being of no small imagination, he grew into a young man with a unique vision. What he would learn over a great deal of time is in itself a lesson for all of us about both human nature & “going against the grain” of what was, at the time in which he lived, the established belief system which had the political & financial support of the “powers that were.”
His vision took him initially to another country. His native country, possessing many of the region’s leaders in trade & commerce, did not have the collective will to focus its efforts on what he felt was necessary to do to achieve his goal. So his first great step was to attempt to convince a foreign government that the direction it had been taking with its exploration program for decades was…wrong.
Upon arriving at his destination & sharing his vision with this other country’s head of government & those who were administrating its exploration plan, he was pretty much laughed out of the country. Not one with skin so thin that he would be easily discouraged, he then decided to visit yet another nation. Even though he knew that this other country was not engaged in an exploration program as organized & funded as the one he had just struck out with, his thinking was very savvy, because he knew the level of rivalry that existed between these two countries.
Once he stated his plan to this other country’s leaders, he was told, in a manner of speaking, that they’d “get back to him.” Now, some of us might think that over 6 years is somewhat long to “cool one’s heels” while waiting for a yea or nay. Well, the subject of our story was no different; he decided that after all that time, he needed to move on with his life. So, dejectedly, he left that country’s seat of government & started on his journey to a destination which never was realized. This is because he was located by that country’s leaders’ representatives, who told him that there had been a change of both heart & mind. Hmmm…the man thought, perhaps it was good that there were two leaders of that country, one male & one female!
Appearing before the leaders, he was told that yes, they would support his mission. Yes, they would grant him the title & rank he had requested. Can you just imagine? It would be like today, convincing a foreign government like China or India, who both have economies with incredible growth yet fairly lagging space technology, that one could get to Mars by taking a path entirely different from that which the United States has been planning & developing for over half a century. “Fat chance,” you say?
If you haven’t guessed by now, the subject of today’s posting is Christopher Columbus. On August 3, 1492, he & his crews set out from the port of Palos, Spain, in three ships, the Pinta, Nina, & Santa Maria. Their mission was to travel in a direction altogether different from that of Portugal’s long-established program which was conducted by King John’s son, Prince Henry, & his School of Navigation. No, all Columbus proposed to do was to find the Orient & its great trade riches of spices, silk, tea, & other goods from afar so craved by an exploding European market. He would do this by going due west from Europe rather than by circumnavigating the seemingly endless western edge of the vast continent of Africa southward in order to find a path to the Far East.
I could go into further detail on such topics as how Columbus kept two logs on his voyage of discovery in 1492, one log that he shared with the crew, & the one he kept private which showed a vast difference in distance traveled from home. How his men threatened mutiny on that voyage. Perhaps even encourage the reader to ponder how to apply the message of Columbus’ perseverance to one’s own life. I could tell of how it wasn’t until Columbus’ fourth voyage to the New World, when he sailed into the mouth of the Amazon River &, experiencing the magnificent volume of its flow into the Atlantic, realized that he was in an otro mundo, or “other world.” You might recall from your schooling that when Columbus landed on Hispaniola on October 12, 1492, he thought he had reached the Indies of the Far East. Well, we call the islands of the Carribean the West Indies just because of that assumption & how it was dealt with historically & in a cartographic sense. How some like to joke that Columbus was the only explorer who, when he left, didn’t know where he was going, when he got there, didn’t know where he was, & when he returned home, didn’t know where he’d been. Still, credit belongs to him for his perseverance & belief in himself.
Readers might remember that, as the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ voyage approached in 1992, there was a great deal of concern about how to observe this event while understanding how so much suffering has resulted from it because of the impact of European contact with New World peoples. Millions of deaths from smallpox & measles to which New World peoples had never been exposed. (Remember how the Apollo astronauts had to spend time quarantined from the rest of us earthlings after they returned from the moon? What if they had carried some kind of space virus or microbe back to Earth & this could run unchecked across the planet? In 1969 we were just demonstrating how we were trying to “learn from history,” perhaps one of the few times humanity’s collectively gotten together on that approach!)
I might take you into the details of how Columbus never achieved his ultimate goal of reaching the Orient by sailing west, how he was imprisioned by angry rulers Ferdinand & Isabella of Spain for not doing what he told them he’d accomplish when they granted him approval for his voyages & bestowed upon him the title, Admiral of the Ocean Seas. How he died pretty much broken-hearted.
We could also do some thinking about why the Catholic faith has the largest number of followers in the Western Hemisphere, a fact due to Spain’s exploration, colonization & conquest of the New World, whether its original inhabitants wanted to “get on board” or not. Maybe, especially for those readers who struggle to accept that Spanish is the language spoken by the largest number of people in the Western Hemisphere, how this fact goes back to Spain being the initial European country to create lasting settlements in the New World. Had it not been for Spain waging war on England due to English sea dogs like Francis Drake (who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth for his plundering & had to sail around the world to keep the Spanish from capturing him & taking his head!), robbing the Spanish treasure convoys returning home laden with wealth taken from New World peoples, the English would never gotten into it with the Spanish Armada in 1588. Because of the defeat of the Spanish in this sea battle, Britain was able to turn its attention to the idea of going after some of that New World for itself. “And the rest is history,” so goes the cliche.
Lots more could be said, but to get back to the inspiration for my posting today, I awoke around 5 AM & found myself contemplating a conversation I’d had last night with my youngest son about self esteem & how no one can give that to us. We have to earn that for ourselves, & that process can often involve having to make the commitment to upholding that which we believe in despite what those around us have to say.
For those readers who have stuck with this posting, I’ll end with this statement: Whether you’re a REALTOR pursuing a living in challenging economic circumstances, a young man trying to figure out his path in the world into which he’s going to become an adult, or a person known forever who had a fantastic idea & was able to convince others to support him, we’re all so darn human & have so much in common with each other. Life’s one exciting, mysterious, fantastic, & even scary voyage, isn’t it? Happy Columbus Day, readers. Perhaps I’ve gotten you to think a little about other things besides why you have to go to work or school today instead of having the day off ! -Scott Yahnke
