Columbus Day

Ho-hum, another dead white male who exploited and killed the gentle, prosperous peoples he encountered on his greedy voyages, right? Christopher Columbus explicitly and repeatedly averred his devotion to Christ and his desire to bring the gospel to the heathen lands to which he sailed, but since no “historian” alive today could believe in something as tiresome as the claims of Christ and His Church, Columbus must have been motivated by a lust for gold and plunder. That’s the way we hear it, right?

As for me, I say God bless the memory of Christopher Columbus and his deeds. I feel a kinship with him because I am a member of that most despised group: a white, normal (heterosexual), Christian man who neither hates himself and his people nor apologizes for who he is or what he believes.

The Vikings used ravens in their seafaring. I wonder if Christopher Columbus could have used a few crows? I’m sure ship’s biscuit would have been quite to their liking.

***

I dropped our household trash at the landfill this morning. When I was leaving, I saw a cat on the side of the road in the weeds next to the chain link fence. It was brown and battered, and it stared at me with weary, wary eyes. As I turned onto the road, I looked in the rearview mirror and saw the cat walk down the middle of the road in the opposite direction. I said a prayer for the cat, asking that it might find a good meal today and steer clear of the cruel ones of my kind.

***

People who’ve gotten the jab really do seem to hate those of us who refuse to submit to this medical experimentation. Their anger is far out of proportion to the supposed “danger” of the coof, the dread malady with a 99+% survival rate. I believe they’re angry because they got the jab and now they regret it. They know in their guts that they were duped and they want everyone else to sit in their pew.

This reminds me of the eternal polemics about abortion. I’ve concluded, based on my own conversations with women who have aborted their babies, that the most vicious and venomous reactions to any prolife talk come from women who have not only had abortions but know inside that they committed a grave sin and regret it down to their toes. Their adderlike anger is rooted in their shame and unconfessed guilt.

The writer Anne Lamott, a damaged creature whom I truly pity, fills her writing with this sort of venom. From hell’s heart women like Lamott stab at anyone who prays for an unborn child. Such defensive poison can never burn their guilt away, and they are unable to see that confession, contrition, and a little holy water truly would clear them of the guilt of the deed, if not its consequences.

How tragic is bitter pride in the heart of one who needs grace and forgiveness so much (and yes, I am looking at myself right now).

The rage that the vaxxed have towards the unvaxxed in these times is beyond toxic. It is soul-destroying. And I expect it will get worse once we start to learn that the smug “leaders” of this country and their loved ones never really even got the jab. It was, like everything else they do, completely fake.

But at least they get to spit at Columbus and cheer for “Indigenous Peoples’ Day,” whatever that is.

~ S.K. Orr