Columbia

When we passed by the Capitol building in D.C. recently we noticed and wondered about the statue on the top of the dome. The figure is a woman, resembling the Statue of Liberty, but wearing a helmet and carrying a sword. I thought, perhaps, the figure is of Columbia -- but then hesitated because she was not carrying a torch like the movie company icon. Then we began to wonder who Columbia is, really, and about statues of muscular women depicting America, in general. How is the figure on the Capitol dome related to the one in New York?

A little research reveals yet more Native American associations and evolution of myths symbolizing our country. Early on the image of choice to represent our young nation was a naked native american warrior princess astride a giant armadillo. This must have seemed a little wild as soon thereafter the image changed to a clothed princess sans critter. With European influence images of Greek goddesses synthed in, an interesting combination of Artemis, the goddess of wisdom, and Athena, the goddess of war (or of liberty). Adornments changed then from skin, feathers, bows and arrows to flowing robes, spears, swords, torches, and tomes.

So, to answer my own question, "Columbia" is a synthesis of all the above, and name is derived from that dubious explorer Christopher Columbus who "discovered" this "new" world.

BTW the statue on the Capitol dome is "The Lady of Freedom", kind of a sister image to Lady Liberty.

Gateway

We strolled from our hotel to the St. Louis Arch and the Thomas Jefferson Western Expansion Memorial. This monument is an amazing sight, almost unbelievable, like someone photo shopped an impossible image onto the sky in the background of St. Louis.

This is the historic point of departure for dreamers leaving for a new life in the open, untamed west. To me it couldn't be more intimidating or exciting than boarding a space ship to colonize a new planet. Then again the people loading their prairie schooners with enough goods to survive the trip and start a new life, along with their families, couldn't possibly have imagined the distance nor terrain and obstacles awaiting them. Even from the top of the arch the formidable Rocky Mountains are invisible, the distance between here and there unimaginable.


Yet still they left; still they came west.

At Ellis Island we learned how the politics of old Europe drove people away on a similar journey, a dream and prayer to be anywhere but where they were, oppressed in unimaginable ways. The seeds of modern distrust of government must have come over the ocean from peoples whose governments were murderous. What then drove people from the new America away into the west? Hope of riches? Dreams of having even more control over their own prospects? Restlessness? God?

Now, in a few days, as we continue westward, we will be home in a place forged by those who came dreaming before us. When we left, a rainbow filled the Eastern sky, inviting us on our adventure. As we return, a steel bow beckons as our doorway to possibility and promise in the West.


Through the gateway we pass; we are coming back, not to something new, but renewed ourselves by tracing our history as Western Americans. What calls us is -- home.

Turning West

After a few days I'm back in a spot with internet access! Since last post we left Philly and spent several days in the Washington, D.C. area.

We walked the Mall area around the Washington Memorial, taking in a view of the White House on the President's birthday, strolling in and through the magnificent World War II Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, and Korean War Memorial. The memory of these conflicts weighs heavy. I'm glad to know the sacrifices made in these wars will not be forgotten. Yet at the same time I am troubled by how much of our national history is marked by war. The presence of tight, grim security around the Capital area is stern and somewhat oppressive. I am surprised and saddened by how little joy there is here -- vigilant alertness, to be sure, but a decided lack of warmth and hospitality compared to other places we have visited. I suppose this is to be expected, D.C. being the place where our leaders reside. Still taking in the atmosphere here is sobering.

After a day outside in the muggy heat, I looked forward to getting in a few famous air-conditioned museums the next. I felt ready for aspiration and inspiration as a counterpoint to caution and vigilance. Some relief there -- yet the Holocaust Museum is poignant, necessary, and disturbing. Air and Space Museum, hung like a child's bedroom with real airplanes and spaceships, is also infused with the history of our wars. Next time around I'll start with the art museums!

In the swirl of D.C. we hooked up with Cre, Shirley, and Jadyn Murphy. What a blessing to be welcomed into their apartment home, fed, watered, tickled, smiled at and generally loved up. As with other settings, I find it's being with people in an open way that brings a feeling of what matters -- so much of that inhibited in the stone and stone-faced security that surrounds our nation's leaders. I hope and pray they have people in their lives who smile at them! If we could have gotten close enough we would have, perhaps, offered that.

We are turned back West now, with a little over a week to go. We are out of the bustle of the East. As we motored out of Maryland into West Virginia and to Ohio, John Denver of all people crept into out heads . . . "Almost heaven, West Virginia, Blue Ridge Mountains. Shenandoah River . . . Take me home, country roads!"

Declaration of Values

We arrived in Philadelphia, PA on the heels of a swim in Manhattan. Contrasts abound: thousands of people milling about in the commercial glitz of Times Square, fifty or so loosely arranged in Independence Hall at the wellsprings of our governance; multi-story electronic ads giving way to churches and halls adorned with carvings and weathered over 200 years of time; din of taxi horns, music, and sidewalk sellers evaporating into quiet streets marked by subtle plaques noting the greatness of the people who lived and worked at our beginnings; millions of free people buying and selling in the shadow of skyscraper temples to material success; a few hundred milling about the Mecca of America. Nearly everything except the sounds and smells are for sale in New York. Sights and tours of Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, and environs are free.


We arrived in time for a tour of IH. I'm enriched by the guide's summation of the beginning of our history, in the rooms where we began. He pointed out where the framers of the Declaration of Independence sat in the room where it was conceived. As this and later the Constitution were written, he described how the process of open input, polarizing difference of opinion, and movement toward compromise characterized our governance from the very start.


As some members of Congress are making a show of standing on principal to the detriment of the country, it is clearer to me now why a certain kind of intransigence is out of rhythm with over 200 years of the substance of leadership and governance.

I think America would be stronger if every citizen spent twenty minutes in Independence Hall, with an open mind. I hope mine is more open than it was before.

Cosmos

We dove into the sea of humanity in downtown Manhattan today. The sheer density of people and culture in a few square miles of city is intense. My son Matt said it best when he observed that, though diversity is a reality in many places, in New York City diversity is accessible because people of all makes, shapes, sizes, and sorts happily interact together.

While people in my view define New York City's personality, the side effects of the teeming populace create a thick backdrop of sight, sound, and smell. Giant screens, some spreading across multiple stories and most of city blocks, flash corporate slogans, broadway show ads, and every product and service imaginable from every angle, left, right, ahead, behind, and up. Taxi horns, chatter, the shifting gears of buses and trucks, currents of street music, and the bass rumble of the subway infuse the city with waves and tides of sound. To my delight, the predominant smell of the city is of good food saturating the air with savory aromas massaging the nose.

When I looked at a map of Manhattan, saw that the distance from Times Square past Central Park to Columbia University is less than four miles, I thought walking from point to point would be easy. I didn't account for the need to stop and wait for a walk light every block, nor how the thick foot traffic slows progress on foot to what I'm sure is about a half mile an hour on average. One cannot stride quickly through Manhattan. The city, in all ways, is simply too dense for a speedy walk, Central Park the exception -- but no one is in a hurry in Central Park. Taxis, subway, bus and, for the wealthy, limos are the way to move from place to place if getting from point A to B is what matters.

Excited and agog at all this, we came to Christ Church (United Methodist) on 60th and Park Ave, a landmark for it's Byzantine architecture and artistry. We stepped into the sanctuary and found an island of serenity. Prayer candles flickered from the altar rail past mostly open, empty pews beneath tiled, vaulted ceilings depicting the heavens. The exalted Christ looks down from the chancel dome, seated above Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, each holding their Gospel books. We had stepped into a world within a world, passing from human chaos to divine cosmos.

We lingered in the sanctuary for an hour that felt timeless, grateful for an oasis of peace and order we would have least expected to find here. I think -- this is what Sunday morning is for the average person: a touchstone of the way God intended the world to be, in the midst of the world human beings create. So we take the sense of Christ's Lordship with us into the swirling, sometimes crazed life we live.

Americans

After 3000 miles or so on the road, several stays with friends of friends we had never before met, countless interactions with fellow tourists, service people, and even most drivers, I am pleased to have a new stereotype to apply to people who live in America.

First, to touch on some of the previous ones -- Californians are haughty and in a hurry; Idahoans are stubborn and independent to a fault; people from Wyoming are cowboys; South Dakotans are flat like the terrain; Minnesotans are stoic and sure by golly wish they weren't, oh to just guffaw for once, donchaknow . . . etc.

Throw in images formed from television and general ignorance about Easterners: fast talkers, abrupt, agressive. I could see that -- but then there is Eddie down at the front desk here in Jersey. Yeah, talks kinda fast, says "be right widcha" right on cue, has a lot of energy, but underneath the style is basically a nice guy who looks you in the eye and really wants to be of help.

Today we head into New York City. Here's what I expect to find: folks with their own charming cultural style who are, at heart, basically good people with a bent to friendliness. I'll let you know if that's mistaken but again having just motored nearly from sea to shining sea I'm feeling confident in the character of the average American.

So, maybe the next time you hear something negative like "people are saying" or "The American people want . . ." or news that makes you wonder if it's OK to be proud to be one . . . open hearts abound in this country. Makes one proud.

Heroes

We wound into Custer State Park on the narrow, sometimes corkscrewing roads through Keystone, WY, twisting around pigtail bridges and threading needle-like tunnels, some with just one lane. Our destination for the night was a camp site Laura nabbed early that morning at Center Lake.

CSP is one of the cleanest, well managed parks I've ever visited. As we began to visit points of interest we learned how the current park embodies the vision of Peter Norbec, a mover and shaker in the time around the Great Depression. Nearly all of the literature and information about Custer State Park makes reference to Mr. Norbec, elevating him to the status of local hero. And of course the park is named for a famous/infamous general, hero to many.

A main attraction in the park is, of course, Mt. Rushmore. Four American heroes, past presidents, gaze down on the park from a mountain.

We set out the first full day at the park to the great faces in stone close up. We had caught glimpses of them artfully framed in the narrow tunnels. With a good view from the road as we approached the Memorial we elected to move on to Crazy Horse up the road.

Crazy Horse Monument has a great premise: that Native American peoples have heroes, too. I enjoy several ironies with this project. Most obvious is that Crazy Horse is much larger than the four American presidents combined -- with a wink the Native Americans may be laying a larger claim on the lands captured and sculpted to a different cultural sense. More profound is the immensity of the process involved in carving the likeness of Crazy Horse in a mountain and creating a Native American Cultural center. After six decades Crazy Horse has a face. No completion date is set. The process, which will take several lifetimes, is just as important as the result. This in counterpoint to the results-driven reshaping of the land by our peoples.

I look for personal connections with these sites. I found an unexpected one at Crazy Horse. The Native American leader died on September 6, 1877 from a knife wound in the back by an American Soldier. The man (a European American)Karzac Ziolkowski recruited to carve the mountain monument was born on September 6, 1908; this was considered an omen by those who sought him out to begin this enormous project.

So, with my birthday also on September 6, I suppose I naturally take my encounter with Crazy Horse personally.

We had a great three days in Custer State Park, and I have a lot to think about.