Columbus Day - By Chuck Stilwell

I have always been interested in history. The history of our own country has particularly been of personal interest since some of my forefathers came over on the Mayflower and three presidents of the United States were close ancestors of our family. In a time of national despondency and discontent, we tend to forget the determined intentionality of those heroes who have gone before us. They had vision and courage to attempt the impossible to reach the incredible. Recently I have been reading about Christopher Columbus. He was from a poor weaver’s family in Genoa and he and his brother, Bartholomew, were expected to carry on the weaver’s trade. Yet, they both had another vision. Whenever possible they went to the docks to see the sailing vessels and dream of sailing. The seeds of imagination grew in their minds and hearts. Bartholomew left the weaver’s trade and became a map maker for the sea captains, gaining much knowledge about the seas. Christopher joined him for a while and learned much from him about both sea and land potential explorations. Christopher finally was able to sail with a ship and ended up, possibly the only survivor of a pirate raid. He was seriously wounded and was thrown overboard and grabbed a plank of the wrecked ship and determinedly made it to the rocky shore of Portugal where he lay unconscious. Found by fishermen he was nurtured back to health. Later, he pursued his vision of sailing the great Ocean Sea in search of a new route to the Indies. With extraordinary obstacles and during severe weather and political upheaval, he was finally able to reach the islands off the coast of our country. In so doing he served to remove the fear of many European seamen and rulers about sailing west. The rest is history! The Spanish, Portuguese, English and many other countries set out to sail west and found America’s northern and southern hemispheres. Of course, we now know that others preceded him by centuries. However, we have him and his brothers and even the rulers of Spain at the time for the colonization and later freedom in what is now our country. Columbus was a devout man of God, even though we would not condone some of the things that occurred during his time as Admiral. Remember happens in our country’s coming elections and political decisions, let’s remember that change comes from those who are bold and fear not when they know their vision is correct and noble, no matter their background.