Thanksgiving Season

About this time each year I make an effort to pick up one of my favorite books for a re-read. This one falls in the rare category of "purely-enjoyment-but-educational-too". Other books are different; I read them start to finish in short order. Time permitting I read some books for the pure entertainment now and then, such as a Tom Clancy novel. Most often, I try to read a book with some significance, however, so that I am learning something by reading. It is rare to be able mix the two.

I am especially grateful to read this one, and I rarely finish a whole chapter in one sitting, just because I relish the story so much that I often re-read each sentence, paragraph – more than once I have even re-read the chapter that I read the night before.

It is a wonderful, sometimes tragic story in which the supernatural works in the things of men, both to evil and to good, in evil men and in good men. But it isn't the Iliad or the Odyssey, nor some legend of Viking lore. Instead, it is the story of the founding of our United States – history (Gasp! Groan!). The book that I love is The Light and the Glory by Peter Marshall and David Manuel.

I hesitate to mention any of the story here, because I cannot tell it in the captivating way that they have written it, and any attempt by me would only diminish that. But, in light of what I have been learning from it, I am going to explode if I don't express some of it…

 

The Characters:

Christopher Columbus, the famed explorer, was a man of dual purposes, who at times showed sacrificial, penitent humility to God, while at other times showed supreme arrogance and disobedience. In his times of humility and obedience he found providential blessing and miraculous workings. In his times of arrogance, he found hardship and "bad luck". He was on the one hand desirous to be a Christ-bearer, and on the other hand he was at times consumed with greed and lust for power and honor. He died an ultimate failure – not having brought Christ to the New World, but terrible calamity. He was a shame to the Spanish who called him "Admiral of the Mosquitoes".

Spanish and Portuguese– these explorers brought a few priests, monks and the like to assuage their conscience in a terrible search for wealth and power that resulted in bloody conquest and oppression of the South and Central Americas. The cruelty of the marauders was perhaps greater than that of the natives on whom they lavished their evil greed.

Dominicans, Jesuits and Franciscans – The authors name these men tiny points of light in a dark time, "Those first friars… …may have been tiny pinpricks of light, but the pins grew sharper and light grew brighter wherever they were posted." Because of the selfless pursuits of these men to serve and love God, the natives of the New World began to see the love of Christ. The church proper of that time was performing the Inquisition and Martin Luther had just then posted his 95 Theses in 1519. Even in the darkness of those days, God was working events to His purposes.

 

There is much, much more. I hope to relate more of this, but for now I wish us to consider these things? Columbus was perhaps one of the most stubborn, arrogant and self-deceived men of which I have read. The natives were a blood-thirsty culture who practiced human sacrifice and sometimes cannibalism, but were perhaps outdone in their inhumanity with the exploits of the "civilized" nations of Europe. The friars of the time were a rare hope in a dark time, but in them we find the redemption of God in an otherwise awful recitation.

 

It is plain to me that the Evil One is constantly at work to blind, corrupt and to pillage the hearts of men, robbing them of joy, hope, and love, instead filling them greed, lust, and fear as hopeless substitutes. From this God is looking for men of any status to turn fully to Him, to seek His Kingdom at any cost that some might be saved. But it is not a small hope in a vastly dark time, the possibilities are immense. As we fully know we are greatly indebted to such men. It is because of their Godly commitment that we have the benefit of surplus with which to either honor God or to selfishly lavish upon ourselves.

 

Even in the worst of cases, these men also had a choice. They could have remained in the comforts of the stations to which they were born. Most of them left relative comfort and wealth to serve the Lord, taking vows of poverty and working alongside the native of the New World… Some lost their lives to natives they served, barbarically, ritually, filleted by fearful people who did not yet understand the love they were offered. Yet in the deaths of these selfless men, they witnessed the power of God and many were turned even then.

 

I hope that as I write, you will consider purchasing this book for your library. And I hope to add to this post. I would like to relate to you some of the details of the famed Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving. I am grateful for the testimony of such a cloud of witnesses… Our history is full of them, and it is good for me to remember that in the present it is always hard to distinguish the hope we have while in the midst of the evils of the age.

 

"I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe…" Ephesians 1: 18, 19