Published: December 02, 2008 12:50 pm         

Lessons learned at the gateway

Horace Greeley is often credited with a line originally penned by John Soule: “Go West, young man, and grow up with the country.” That first appeared in an 1854 Terre Haute Express editorial by Soule. Four years later, Greeley “borrowed” a portion for his own column, without crediting Soule and shortening the phrase to, “Go West, young man.”

Whether that’s plagiarism or research depends on your ethics. Whatever it’s called, when heading west, the Gateway Arch in St. Louis is your official welcome. It stands 630 feet tall, and for the anal retentive among us, the cross-sections of its legs are “equilateral triangles” (that’ll keep my geometry teacher smiling because he told me I’d need his class in ministry).

Since its completion in 1965, 11 light aircraft have successfully flown through the arch, and several other notable incidents have also transpired. For example, in 1980, Kenneth Sawyers tried to parachute onto the span of the arch. His momentum, however, caused him to slide all the way down one leg to his death.

In 1984, David Adcock began to scale the arch using suction cups, but he was talked out of his attempt after climbing only 20 feet. Instead, the next day he scaled the 21-story Equitable Building.

In 1992, John Vincent successfully scaled the arch and then performed a BASE jump from the span with a parachute. That little stunt cost Vincent three months in jail.

In 1980, we drove to Oklahoma with friends. There were eight of us in the car, including four children under the age of 5, and when the arch came into view, I pleaded with the kids to stay seated and to lower their voices. Traffic is always congested in St. Louis, and I didn’t need any extracurricular distractions. Having traveled past the arch many times, I was as capable as Christopher Columbus navigating the Mayflower across the Atlantic Ocean.

Five minutes later, after a series of wrong turns, I found myself headed directly for the base of the arch on a sidewalk! My sidekick wasn’t any help, regurgitating my impassioned speech amid laughter and occasional shrieks from our wives in the backseat. Suddenly, a gardener appeared with a rake and he was shouting obscenities in my direction.

At that moment I did what any reasonable man would have done in similar circumstances: I stepped on the gas and fled the scene of the dastardly deed.

In 1 Samuel 9, Saul was sent to find his father’s missing donkeys. After an unsuccessful search, his servant suggested that he seek help from God’s prophet. As they entered the next city, Samuel says that, “Saul approached (him) in the gateway” (1 Samuel 9:18, NIV). The result of that meeting was the selection of Saul as Israel’s first king.

Saul didn’t find his father’s missing donkeys in the gateway of that unnamed city, but he did discover his life’s purpose. As for me, I made a donkey out of myself and discovered a monumental lesson in humility.

Tony Thomas is a church pastor, a high school basketball coach and author of “A Smidgeon of Religion.” He can be reached through the newspaper at ptnews@pharostribune.com