Nibbling Away Greatness
Journal 2005 04 12
Nibbling Away Greatness
Warm and windy today. Fifty-six degrees when the Corps set out in the late morning. The party has “proceeded on” to the mouth of the Little Missouri River and stopped the day before to make celestial observations in order to determine their latitude and longitude. This activity depends on clear skies. One charge of the expedition was to produce an accurate map of the land between St. Louis and the Pacific Ocean. The Captains were meticulous in their work. Captain Clark was the cartographer and produced maps that were used for many years as the west was explored.
Not wanting to spend all day waiting for the weather to clear so they could take more celestial observations to better confirm their position on the planet, the party set out upstream once again. (Plotting an accurate position on the map required making hundreds of timed measurements and averaging them out until the margin of error was small enough to assure accuracy.)
The men were in high spirits, the travel relatively easy in that Lewis compared the current (or courant as he spelled it) to the current of the Ohio River at high tide. Along this stretch of river the banks were extremely undercut and care had to be taken to not get under the overhangs and risk an overhang falling off and sinking one of the boats. Lewis’ first scare was when one of the pirogues got under an overhang and had to gingerly continue on until clear of it.
They have seen seams of coal burning in nearby hills (from lightning or the Indian prairie fires), thunder and lightning storms, clear skies, strong winds and calm. Antelope are observed again. Yet the fast and elusive antelope are still beyond the reach of the hunters’ flintlock rifles. Bear tracks are observed.
And their old friend the mosquito has made his unwelcome return. The numbers of the gnat surprise the party for this early season. And the friend of every group that stores food, the common mouse, has found its way aboard the canoes and wants to share the corn with the men.
It is so interesting to me that in the quest for greatness in the kingdom of this earth irritants constantly “nibble” at our humanness. Try as we might to make our lives perfect and free from the intrusions of irritations they are common to life and living.
I have filled all the spots where a mouse could gain entrance to our home. Yet a rat has taken residence in an unused downspout hole (outside, but irritating). Birds have pulled the screen on a vent hole in the attic and scratch an alarm in the morning above our bedroom ceiling requiring a climb up a forty-foot ladder to block their entrance. (More than irritating. I do not like going to the top of a forty-foot ladder.) Spiders constantly look to fill corners with their invisible webs. Being tall, I’ve grown an aversion to spider webs across the face.
In our shared desire for achievement, significance and human greatness have we become so distracted with eliminating the common irritants known to all men that we have lost our compass and the heading it leads us to?
If comfort and peace are our goals greatness will never be our companion.
All significant achievements have required the exercise of a dogged determination to “proceed on” no matter the obstacles that arise.
If you are sidetracked or stopped because of the irritating nature of mice and mosquitoes you have to realize that human frailty will always attempt to overcome spiritual strength.
Only when we allow the sprit to overcome the body can we allow the great things of God to rule our lives and achieve the greatness that He has reserved for us in Him.
Make peace with the irritants in your life. Try to rid yourself of them, of course. Don’t fall prey to the simple trap of letting them stop your advancement to greatness.
Nibbling Away Greatness
Warm and windy today. Fifty-six degrees when the Corps set out in the late morning. The party has “proceeded on” to the mouth of the Little Missouri River and stopped the day before to make celestial observations in order to determine their latitude and longitude. This activity depends on clear skies. One charge of the expedition was to produce an accurate map of the land between St. Louis and the Pacific Ocean. The Captains were meticulous in their work. Captain Clark was the cartographer and produced maps that were used for many years as the west was explored.
Not wanting to spend all day waiting for the weather to clear so they could take more celestial observations to better confirm their position on the planet, the party set out upstream once again. (Plotting an accurate position on the map required making hundreds of timed measurements and averaging them out until the margin of error was small enough to assure accuracy.)
The men were in high spirits, the travel relatively easy in that Lewis compared the current (or courant as he spelled it) to the current of the Ohio River at high tide. Along this stretch of river the banks were extremely undercut and care had to be taken to not get under the overhangs and risk an overhang falling off and sinking one of the boats. Lewis’ first scare was when one of the pirogues got under an overhang and had to gingerly continue on until clear of it.
They have seen seams of coal burning in nearby hills (from lightning or the Indian prairie fires), thunder and lightning storms, clear skies, strong winds and calm. Antelope are observed again. Yet the fast and elusive antelope are still beyond the reach of the hunters’ flintlock rifles. Bear tracks are observed.
And their old friend the mosquito has made his unwelcome return. The numbers of the gnat surprise the party for this early season. And the friend of every group that stores food, the common mouse, has found its way aboard the canoes and wants to share the corn with the men.
It is so interesting to me that in the quest for greatness in the kingdom of this earth irritants constantly “nibble” at our humanness. Try as we might to make our lives perfect and free from the intrusions of irritations they are common to life and living.
I have filled all the spots where a mouse could gain entrance to our home. Yet a rat has taken residence in an unused downspout hole (outside, but irritating). Birds have pulled the screen on a vent hole in the attic and scratch an alarm in the morning above our bedroom ceiling requiring a climb up a forty-foot ladder to block their entrance. (More than irritating. I do not like going to the top of a forty-foot ladder.) Spiders constantly look to fill corners with their invisible webs. Being tall, I’ve grown an aversion to spider webs across the face.
In our shared desire for achievement, significance and human greatness have we become so distracted with eliminating the common irritants known to all men that we have lost our compass and the heading it leads us to?
If comfort and peace are our goals greatness will never be our companion.
All significant achievements have required the exercise of a dogged determination to “proceed on” no matter the obstacles that arise.
If you are sidetracked or stopped because of the irritating nature of mice and mosquitoes you have to realize that human frailty will always attempt to overcome spiritual strength.
Only when we allow the sprit to overcome the body can we allow the great things of God to rule our lives and achieve the greatness that He has reserved for us in Him.
Make peace with the irritants in your life. Try to rid yourself of them, of course. Don’t fall prey to the simple trap of letting them stop your advancement to greatness.
posted by @2007 Dick Cinkovich | 9:21 PM
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