Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

In which I am surprised by Christopher Columbus

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“Christopher Columbus,” Jo March of Little Women cried whenever she was astonished.
Well, he’s surprised me.
                                             * * *
I first pondered Columbus in 1992, five hundred years after he sailed the ocean blue. Visited a few quincentennial exhibitions, especially one in Minneapolis, which was chiefly focused on the noxious effects of the Columbian Exchange particularly on native peoples.
More recently, in reading Mark Batterson’s Wild Goose Chase, I learned that Columbus was a man of faith.
Most experts believed that finding a westward route to the Indies was impossible. But Columbus challenged the assumption.
He later said that it wasn’t intelligence, mathematics or maps that made his voyage a success. He credited the Holy Spirit with the idea.
Columbus wrote, “It was the Lord who put it in my mind, (I could feel his hand upon me) the fact that it would be possible to sail from here to the Indies. All who heard of my project rejected it with laughter, ridiculing me. There is no question that the inspiration was from the Holy Spirit, because He comforted me with rays of marvellous inspiration from the Holy Scriptures.” (Peter Marshall and David Manuel, The Light and the Glory).
And Columbus sailed with a crew not one of whom had ever been more than three hundred miles offshore.
* * * 
Columbus was honoured by King Ferdinand which aroused some jealousy. His rivals murmured that anyone could have sailed there, and discovered a New World.
Columbus called for some hard-boiled eggs. “Can you make them stand up on end?” he asked his critics at court.
“Of course,” they said, but failed.
He slammed an egg down on the table, and it stood up on its flat, broken end.
“We could do that,” the nobles muttered.
“But you didn’t think of it,” said Columbus. You could have taken my route—but you didn’t think of it. I “thought” of it first.”
* * * 
When I wander around modern art galleries, I frequently hear one matron say to another, “My child could have done that.”
Ah, but did they think of it?
Genius thinks of what no one else has before, and makes it appear simple.
And the Holy Spirit gives us ideas no one has had before, and makes them appear elegant and natural.

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Comments

  1. Columbus probably was a man of faith with many blind spots, things which he didn't recognise as sin, and things he did, but continued with anyway–such as his abysmal treatment of the indigenous peoples, and his greed.

    Just looked up divergent thinking, LA. Very interesting. I think both my husband and I have a streak of it. I soon get bored at jobs in which I have to play by the systems rules (and in fact, resign within 6 months), but enjoy running a small business in which I can make up the rules. Same with Roy!

    I think with the explosion of the internet, and the consequent alternative economies, and the increasing opportunities to be self-employed, our world will increasingly reward divergent thinkers! High time too!

  2. Sorry, didn't mean to be so curt in my above post…that's what happens when I comment before I'm awake. I wasn't intending to dismiss the part about him being a religious man, but the thing with the egg really caught my attention.

  3. Divergent thinking is the lesson here. Look it up in google and read more about it. Absolutely fascinating. One of the main reasons we homeschool because unfortunately our modern schooling inadvertently gets rid of it through this concept that there's only one right answer -to any question. True in chemistry, not so true in literature or art.

    Read “Breakpoint and Beyond” where a group of kindergarteners were given a test – the paper clip test for divergent thinking…a major component of creativity. 98% of the kindergarteners tested in the genius range, after 5 years of formal education, they only scored 50% in the genius range, by high school these exact same kids scored in the 5% range. Same kids followed in a longitudinal study. Columbus likely scored in the genius range even as an adult. Einstein was considered retarded, yes truly, by the education system…because they couldn't stamp out his amazing divergent thinking skills.

    Divergent thinking, a key component in creativity, stamped out by the education system. It's why homeschoolers excel at stuff like Destination Imagination contests (where the kids have to come up with creative solutions to open ended problems). http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-innovations/the-case-against-college/2011/08/17/gIQAYy3ILJ_story.html

    This article talks about the fact that employers are looking for this kind of thinking, but feel the education system continues to churn out really good factory workers, which we don't need many of anymore. Columbus probably would have been ridiculed and bullied in our modern schools as well. Divergent thinkers are picked on as non-conformists and “different”.