Winds of Discord

Journal 2005 11 04
Winds of Discord

Yesterday, after seven months in lands unknown to western civilization, the Corps of Discovery enters territory previously visited by white men. Captain Robert Gray sailing the Columbia Rediviva first entered the Columbia River in 1792, thirteen years earlier. Already the influence of trade and trading goods is disjointing the culture of the Indians inhabiting the lower Columbia River.

William Clark records the theft of his tomahawk pipe that he used across the continent to “smoke” with the great chiefs along the journey. He turns the place upside down, searching every man and canoe and comes away empty handed. A “cappote,” or greatcoat, is also missing and found hidden under a nearby tree root. These simple acts of stealing set a barrier between the Corps of Discovery and these Indians that will never really be overcome until the Corp departs next spring. Clark uses the word “thieving.”

Distrust now inhabits the center of their interactions with this Indian nation. Disdain and disgust will constantly nibble at the edges of their interactions as the months of fall and winter pass later this year. The seeds of this discord were sown by the Indians newfound desire and sense of entitlement to western trade goods. The Indians culture of communal living and the explorers desire to give gifts as tokens of peace and future promises of “business” combine to form the foundation of good intentions gone awry. The Indian nations never really recover from the “false promises” of the white man and the white man never sees the “thieving” of the Indian as part of their communal life. Hard to believe we could set something in place and still have the roots of bitterness in place two hundred years later.

I had intentions of writing of the thick fog that delayed their departure these past mornings just like it interferes with ours today. Of the Sand River emptying into the Columbia with such “compression” that the Sand River impacts the opposite bank of the Columbia with great force. How Clark notes and confirms from Captain Gray’s maps that indeed it is Mt. Hood 47 miles distant and 85 degrees south of his present heading on his compass. My intention was to relate how life on the river is dictated by the obvious influence of nature in the meeting of ocean, river, land and mountains orchestrated by the life of wind. Reflective of the work of the Wind of the Spirit of God.

We get “winds of discord” instead of the “Wind of the Spirit” this morning. Suspicion. Distrust. Entitlement. Familiarity. Lack of respect and honor. Foundations to futility.

For those married among our readership, do you ever say, do or give something to your spouse that would please you but is displeasing to your mate? I have. Too many times. Because I gave out of my view, not out of my understanding of what pleases and blesses my beautiful bride. Your gift can sow discord and misunderstanding or you can learn and change. Give gifts that please, minister to and bless the receiver. No electronic devices, game calls, hunting gear, camo, computer anything, car accessories, tools, flashlights, knives or anything else out of the Cabela’s catalog will pass from my hand to my wife. Chanel 22 perfume, jewelry, clothes, dinner dates, trips and flowers will always be well received with a personal note in the card. Anything else falls short. I pray I’ve learned. I hope you have, too.

Paul, the apostle of Jesus Christ, was a Jew. The foundation of the Christian church rests on the testimony of Peter, a Jewish fisherman, that there is no one else other than Christ. Persecution drove the Jewish Christian church outside Jerusalem into Gentile lands. Jews and Gentiles were like dogs and cats. Didn’t get along too well. Jews were made “unclean” by their interactions with Gentiles. Gentiles were put off by the haughtiness and religious arrogance of the Jews that made the Gentiles feel like dogs.

As the persecuted Jews, who had become followers of Jesus Christ, were living in the foreign lands of the Gentiles two cultures clashed. They clashed for our sake today as we clash with the cultures around us. As the Corps clashed with the Chinooks. In the discord, the Good News that Jesus Christ died as the sacrifice for our sin, rose from the grave and returned to Heaven leaving His Holy Spirit until the time of fulfillment of His promise to return was received by multitudes of Gentiles. Now Jews and Gentiles had been reconciled to the Jewish God by the Jewish Messiah! The Jews thought all followers of Christ must become like them in many of the foundational practices of the Jewish traditions.

Without extending today’s record into a book suitable for religious training, God offered the resolution for all cultural conflict. HIMSELF. In the person of His Son. And if both cultures focus on Him, both are changed. Changed because they move from their culture into the Kingdom of God. A better place.

“If God gave to them the same gift as to us, they having believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to be able to prevent God?” (Acts 11:17)

Lewis and Clark traveled with a message from a man, the President of the United States. That message was not able to reconcile nations. We travel with a message from God the Father, verified by Christ the Son and delivered by the work of the Spirit of God. This message is able to reconcile all men and nations. As great a journey as the Corp of Discovery was, it was secular by nature. The great missionary journeys of Paul the Apostle still stand alone because they carried the power to reconcile all nations and peoples to God and one another.