Offering and Accepting Peace
Ray and I enjoyed the lodge, outdoor activities, and pretty spring weather in southern Illinois at Pere Marquette State Park from Sunday night to yesterday morning. Part of our family was able to join us for most of the time. It was a delight.
The Illinois River flows beyond the wide lawn behind the lodge.
The sunsets on the river were beautiful.
I have already written about the stone cross that marks the place where French explorers Jacques Marquette, a Jesuit priest, and Louis Joliet, a fur trader, entered the Illinois River from the Mississippi River on their way home.
In front of the lodge is this statue of Marquette, sculpted by Kirk St. Maur and erected in 1991.
Sculptor Kirk St. Maur depicts Marquette holding a ceremonial pipe, called a calumet. When Marquette and Joliet had reached Arkansas on their way down the Mississippi River, they visited the Quapaw village of Kappa. The Quapaw offered Marquette a calumet. He smoked it with their leaders.
The Quapaw warned the explorers about the Spanish who controlled the lower Mississippi River region at the time. Marquette and Joliet feared that the Spanish might confiscate the records they had created during their expedition. It was at Kappa that the explorers decided to turn back and return to Canada.
Marquette, Joliet, and their crew feasted with the Quapaw for three days and nights. They erected a cross in the Kappa village before beginning their journey back home.
I am grateful that St. Maur included the calumet in his sculpture. To me it is a symbol of peace between people. The Quapaw offered a symbol of peace and Marquette accepted it. One of the many important ways you can bless your children is by teaching them how to offer peace and how to accept it.
To sum up, all of you be harmonious, sympathetic,
brotherly, kindhearted, and humble in spirit;
not returning evil for evil or insult for insult,
but giving a blessing instead;
for you were called for the very purpose
that you might inherit a blessing.
For, “The one who desires life,
to love and see good days,
Must keep his tongue from evil
and his lips from speaking deceit.
“He must turn away from evil and do good;
He must seek peace and pursue it.”
“For the eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous,
And His ears attend to their prayer,
But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”
1 Peter 3:8-12