The list was long. It started with a 55-foot keelboat and two smaller flat-bottomed pirogues, named Red and White, plus a bronze swivel cannon mounted on Red and hundreds of other items. Led by Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, the trip stretched 8,000 miles from St. Charles, Missouri, to the mouth of the Columbia River on the Washington-Oregon coast — and back, of course.
Food included 200 pounds of dried soup, flour, lard, salt pork, three bushels of salt, and other staples. Meat would be provided by hunting along the way — elk, bear, buffalo, fish, birds, small mammals, and finally horsemeat and dogmeat when game was not available. Then gifts — thousands of beads, especially blue ones for Native Americans west of the Mississippi, along with 288 brass thimbles, 144 “small cheap Scizors,” 10 pounds of assorted sewing thread, and Jefferson medallions.
Weaponry included knives of all sizes and usage, 400 pounds of lead, 200 pounds of the “best rifle powder,” and a variety of firearms. Clothing, tobacco, and navigating instruments such as sextants, charts, and a premier “time chronometer” were essential. Multipurpose 8-feet by 12-feet oilskin sheets served for tents and sails.
There were journals, notebooks, candles, and ink tucked into waterproof oilskin bags, along with a “traveling library of books.” More than 30 medicines included opium, mercury ointment, and Dr. Benjamin Rush’s patented “Rush Pills,” familiarly known as “Thunderclaps.” Rush, a prominent Philadelphia physician, scientist, and signer of the Declaration of Independence, claimed his purging pills worked gently and were “sovereign for nearly all mankind’s ills.” Lewis bought 50 dozen.
The Corps of Discovery’s journey, led by Lewis and Clark from May 1804 to September 1806, was both triumph and failure. Thomas Jefferson’s commission had been to find a water route up the Missouri River beginning in St. Charles, Missouri, all the way to the mouth of the Columbia River on the Pacific Coast. The Corps made it to the Pacific Coast all right, but not always by water. Portaging on foot or horseback was too frequent.
By the spring of 1805, the captains were 1,600 miles up the Missouri River. The Corps included 29 people from three races and Seaman, Lewis’ black Newfoundland dog. Clark wrote that the 23 enlisted men were “good hunters, stout healthy unmarried young men…capable of bearing bodily fatigue to a pretty considerable extent…and not adventurers.” Clark also brought along York, his slave.
Shoshone-born Sacagawea and her newborn son Jean Baptiste (“Pomp”) were aboard, along with her husband Toussaint Charbonneau, a Frenchman whom the captains described as a “squaw man” and “ne’er-do-well,” but a much-needed interpreter.
Captain Lewis also carried a new contraption the enlisted men called The Experiment — a collapsible iron framework for a boat he and Thomas Jefferson designed in 1803. By June of 1805 the iron frame was assembled and covered with 28 elk and four buffalo skins. When launched, Lewis wrote that, at first, “She lay like a perfect cork on the water.” But without pitch to waterproof the skins, Lewis soon added, “She leaked in such manner that she would not answer.” The Experiment’s sinking “mortified me not a little,” he confessed.
Mortified. We know mortified. We’ve all been mortified, shamed, embarrassed, humiliated by certain things we have carried with us — at least I have. Thousands of items on the captains’ lists were useful and needed, but not The Experiment. Lewis “bid adieu” to his “favorite boat,” and left The Experiment and a few other items in a deep cache the men dug along the Missouri River. Lewis never mentioned The Experiment again.
Sometimes, that’s what I need to do with things I carry with me. Bury them along the river of my life. Leave them in the deep cache of the Lord’s forgiveness. Walk away. No looking back, no digging up, especially those things that should never have been on my list in the first place. Spiritual misdeeds, sins, bad attitudes, character failures.
Topping my list are the five Gs: greed, gluttony, gossip, gloom, and grumbling. Any day, I’m susceptible to loading up and toting around one or more of these.
Grumbling and gloom, for example. One morning I wake up in a foul mood, gloomy, downcast. That bad mood becomes an excuse to grumble. My father, who wasn’t a grumbler, used to chide me for “getting up on the wrong side of the bed.” Then he would tell me to quit whining, stop carping, and get going. Above all, he wouldn’t let me excuse myself.
Grumble — mutter, murmur, carp, fuss, gripe, nitpick, squawk, growl — label it what you will. Both Testaments condemn grumbling. Jesus warned Jewish leaders not to grumble among themselves (John 6:43). I think He pointed out grumblers need and want an audience. We grumblers are not prone to silence. We affect others, and grumbling goes hand-in-glove with bitterness, a vice not from above, James says (3:14-15). Paul warned us to put grumbling away and instead be kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving (Ephesians 4:31-32).
Moses’ warning to the Israelites about grumbling was even more pointed when he told them their grumbling was not against their leaders but against God (Numbers 16:11). The Psalmist went further in 106:25-39: They murmured [grumbled] in their tents...and did not obey the Lord...they served idols…became unclean…and provoked the Lord to anger. Consequently, God brought them down in the wilderness and scattered their offspring. Grumbling is not a minor sin.
Sometimes, I load up greed and tote it along. Greed isn’t always about money, although in the New Testament it often refers to the intense desire for “base gain” or “filthy lucre.” The Ten Commandments call it covetousness and suggest it is greediness for anything.
When you think about it, greed is motivated by selfishness. It is all about “I.” I want, I need, I hunger for. It is an insatiable urge to grab for more: more power, prestige, position, pleasure, fame, food, drink, time — the list is as long as human depravity. As early as the fourth century A.D., Christians listed greed among the seven deadly sins. Both Peter and Paul warned against greed. Jesus spent a whole parable on it (Luke 12:13-21). In his Inferno, Dante called greed a “she-wolf” that devours us.
The perpetual longing for MORE and MORE and MORE is a heavy load to carry, and a sin I confess to the Lord and turn from. For me, after I repent, the way to throw off greed is to load up on contentment, gratitude, and peace with who I am and what I have. These are great gains.
Fear. How many times have I packed up fear and taken it along with me? The two fears I battle most are the “long goodbye” and widowhood. By long goodbye, I mean a lengthy, lingering end-of-life event, with dementia or
incapacitation. The inability to take care of myself. Death is not my fear, as far as I can tell. Being absent from the body and present with the Lord sounds like blessedness to me. It’s the potential long, hard months or years leading up to death that I fear.
In addition, the aloneness and loneliness of widowhood frighten me. How could I endure, go on without Bill, the one who loves me unreservedly — my partner in life and faith, the father of our sons, the friend who has stuck with me and put up with me these 62 years?
I know I need to unpack those fears, throw them off, and I’m trying. Scripture and the Holy Spirit are my best weapons. Jesus promised to give me rest when I’m “heavy laden,” for His burden is light (Matthew 11:28). Paul urged me to renew my mind (Romans 12:2), to throw off fear and load up on a new kind of thinking: what is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable (Philippians 4:8).
And so, I pray: Lord, help me renew my heart and mind. Help me reload good things to carry with me.
About the Writer: Brenda Evans lives and writes on the banks of Rockhouse Fork in Ashland, Kentucky. You may reach her at beejayevans@windstream.net.
