Passing Through the Gut

Journal 2005 10 25
Passing Through the Gut

Yesterday the Captains had to determine how to best pass through the “gut” of the river. Portage or shoot the rapids? Portage was impractical because of the terrain. Captain Clark again sent the non-swimmers by land and determined that water passage was possible. His single hope was that the canoes would not suffer too much damage in the process.

Men are stationed on the rocks above with ropes to aid the rivermen piloting the canoes should they run into trouble. The first canoe passes with no trouble. A signal is given for the next canoe to proceed. It, too, passes with success. Do you think the men manning the ropes were stoic in their observation of their comrade’s work? I can see hands raised in cheers as the gut is cleared cleanly. Canoe number three gets hung up on a rock and begins to take water. Aid is rendered and the watercraft is successfully brought to shore. The final canoe squeezes through the gut safely.

The Corps crossed a natural boundary and a national boundary in their passage through this gut. They moved from the lands of the Nez Perce nation into the Chinook nation. These tribes are “at war”. The men are on alert. Camp is made on the highest rock promontory they can find. It makes a fine fortress should defense be necessary. Were the men pleased about camping in the rocks? I doubt it. To secure their mission they did the hard thing. Pun intended.

Hunters set out and return with a small deer. Much animal sign is observed giving hope of sustenance for the coming winter. Timber is seen on the mountains again and another large, snow-topped mountain is observed to the southwest. Mt. Hood. The Captains are simply calling it Falls Mountain because of the falls they have just passed.

“Passing through the gut.” We are more “civilized” than our troop of men who had proven themselves able to survive in the wilderness. Do we understand why William Clark describes the long narrow passage of water as a “gut”? In the simplest of illustrations, things enter our wide-open mouths are processed through our digestive systems where they are squeezed through our large and small intestines before passing out of our bodies.

Remember the typical harvest of food required to sustain the Corps on the prairie where food was abundant? One bison, one elk and one deer, or four deer. The result of hunting, killing, cleaning and skinning these animals left lots of guts. How many in our modern world have ever seen an animal’s entrails except maybe in a Thanksgiving turkey? Most of us are more familiar with someone “passing” a kidney stone. Painful as a small object squeezes it’s way through a small passage.

Have you “passed through the gut” in your life? My bet is that you have. Life requires us to be squeezed, pressed and changed. This process of squeezing, pressing and refining transforms us. The process always requires constraint and darkness to complete. Food enters in one form and come out entirely different. How we respond to the process determines how we “come out.” Without sounding too indelicate, do we come out stinky, repugnant and suitable only for fertilizer because the result of our passage required elimination? Or, like meat and fat mixed with spices in a sausage grinder do we pass through the gut and exit fit for consumption, not elimination?

“And He said to them, Are you also without understanding? Do you not perceive that whatever enters into the man from outside cannot defile him, because it does not enter into his heart, but into the belly, and goes out into the waste-bowl, purifying all food? And He said, That which comes out of the man is what defiles the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things pass out from inside and defile the man.” (Mark 7:18-23)

“Truly, truly, I say to you, He who hears My Word and believes on Him who sent Me has everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation, but has passed from death to life.”
(John 5:24) “So that if any one is in Christ, that one is a new creature; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17) “Since then we have a great High Priest who has passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.” (Hebrews 4:14) “We know that we have passed from death to life, …” (1 John 3:14)

The brave rivermen pass through the gut of the river. We are called to have courage and pass from the world as we know it into the Kingdom of God as He declares it to be. Are we willing to attempt it? What is common to this passage? Death and a changed heart. Christ died to create the “gut” that must be traversed by all to cross over the natural boundary of death into the new nation of the Kingdom of God. Are you willing to step into the canoe and let His current carry you? Will the passage find you with new life and a new heart or fit only for fertilizer?