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It’s about air-borne diseases and the air we breathe. It’s about actualizing our birthright. It’s about staying well—and it’s been going on for years, spawning opaqueness in the psyche. Listlessness, confusion, even panic, estrange relationships and distort reality. Flailing for the once-familiar ends—disease has taken its place, and in its wake: fear, suspicion, and incalculable stress.
In my perception, such a scenario exists among us. Pestilence, the fourth rider in the Book of Revelation, still sits astride his pale horse spreading disease and mayhem. There appears no way of suppressing his evil intent, recently targeting planet Earth with the volcanic eruption near Tonga.
But we are not alone. The Psalmist reminds us that Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. (119:105) Interfacing with the power of this word in our psychic depths requires prayer, discernment, and rebuilding community with the like-minded. The guidance comes, if we ask.
The year was 1786, the setting, Boston’s Bunch of Grapes tavern where former officers from the War of Independence gathered. Among them was the Reverend Manasseh Cutler, with doctorates in medicine, law, and divinity. Such opens David McCullough’s historical novel, The Pioneers—The Heroic Story Of The Settlers Who Brought The American Ideal West (2020).
Besides writing of notables in American history, McCullough wanted to present patriots, unknown to history, whose critical influence directed its development. One of these was the Reverend Manasseh Cutler (1742-1823), First Congregationalist pastor in Ipswich Hamlet, Massachusetts. His vision for the Northwest Territory (north and west of the Ohio River) included the prohibition of slavery, the freedom of religion, and state-funded public education, all of which occurred, despite bitter disputes in the Capitol.
McCullough’s discovery of the archives at Marietta College, located in Marietta, Ohio—the first settlement of the pioneers—gave him access to the diaries and letters of Manasseh Cutler and four other families, together with newspapers, pamphlets, and other books. All of which the author wove into a compelling story of ingenuity and daunting hardships: the virgin terrain to clear for log cabins and farms, the extremes of weather, diseases and accidents, clashes with Chief Pike of the Seminoles, the British threat during the War of 1812, and the lack of funds, also in the country, as a whole.
Despite such hardships, the settlers, many from Puritan backgrounds, rarely gave up. Just got up the next morning and saw what was left and started over.
Knowledge of their perseverance attracted thousands of American and European settlers wanting to experience this world of rich soils with their bountiful produce. Live was different here.
David McCullough, now in his mid-eighties, keeps alive the innate goodness of America’s foundation and development in his historical novels and reminds us to be grateful for our heritage.
The tomb is still empty.
It remains so.
No need to seek the living among the dead.
For the present, I’ll post daily blogs every few days instead of daily. Thanks for your interest.
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Heart Whisperings 