Your statutes have been my songs wherever I make my home.
(Psalm 119.54
NRSV)
Christopher Columbus might have thought home a lot as he made his historic voyage of 1492. His crew kept falling into depression because of the length of time it was taking to reach land. So
Columbus hit on an ingenious idea. He kept two logs of the expedition's sailing distance. In one log, which he made available to the crew, he recorded a less than truthful distance covered each day. In this way he placated his sailors with the belief that they were not so far from home. But in another, a secret log, he recorded the real distance traversed by the ships so that he, and he alone, knew the awful truth of how far they had traveled without sighting land. The ploy worked, with little to spare. The crew came close to mutiny, but Columbus was able to extract an agreement from them to travel for another three days, citing the counterfeit log to show they could still sail onward and yet return to Spain. Land was finally encountered with one day to go.
What do you know? These supposedly hardened and experienced sailors were homesick. Home is where the heart is, someone has said.
Are you home with God?
Loving God, bring me home. Amen.
Ron Newhouse
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