1492.  It's one of the most pivotal years in human history.  "In 1492," as the school kids' song goes, "Columbus sailed the blue."  As almost everyone knows, what Columbus found on the other side of the "blue" changed the world.  Humans of two hemispheres, neither of whom had been aware of the other, suddenly were, almost overnight, finding themselves confronting worlds that literally blew their collective minds.  No one would ever be the same.
     Sadly, however, as anyone who has read the late historian Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States (and similar works) knows, although 1492 may have been a momentuous and lucrative year for many Europeans, it was a terrible one for the natives of the Americas. 1492 marked the beginning of a lengthy European oppression and exploitation of the peoples of the Americas, a run of centuries of difficulty and pain, pain which, in some cases, continues, in multiple forms, to this day.
     The worst of it is that in too many instances this exploitation was justified in the name of Christianity.  It was an awful stain on the love of God.
     Historian Erna Paris once observed that, "Attaching God to history is the most powerful nationalism of all."  Whenever we try to juxtapose God and the history we are trying to create, we blur a line we cannot possibly cross:  the boundary between what is here and what is not, the difference between the visible speculations of finitude and the hidden certitudes of infinity.  We think we speak for God.
     And God, it seems, whether he is talking about politics, economics, religion, or inculturation, does not need us to speak for him.  He doesn't need our societal connections and associations to give the planet purpose or meaning.  But we need God. We need God to speak to us.  And as long as we unilaterally construct our sense of greatness and purpose on our limited and necessarily incomplete perceptions of divine will and judgment, we will never hear him.
     Ah, Christopher Columbus.  What a puzzle, what a glorious and messy puzzle, you bequeathed us!