Monday, December 28, 2015

The Human Family



It would be hard at this time of year not to reflect on family life. In my own family there were three major family holiday gatherings in two weeks. On December 12 my father's family gathered -- which means all of the people descended from my paternal grandparents. Then a week later my sister and brothers, and our children gathered followed by a gathering on Christmas Day with my children and their families. There were as usual lots of stories and opportunities to reconnect. And these stories set me to thinking not only about my own family but about some of the stories I have heard from my extended human family around the world. 

A year ago my youngest grandson was born 3 months early weighing only 3 pounds,  when my daughter, his mother, had complications that could have cost the lives of both of them --- except that we live in a wealthy country and she has medical care and was close to a very good neonatal care facility. My grandson was the tiniest infant I had ever held and I didn’t even get to hold him for nearly a month when he had reached 4 pounds. For a short while all hopes and dreams were limited to survival. Now he is busy trying to catch up with his peers, crawling and pulling himself up and working hard to walk and talk. He is very bright and his mommy is fine. Our family feels blessed.
Not too many weeks ago the world was shaken by a picture of the body of a little boy washed up on a coastal beach in Turkey. He had drowned along with his mother and brother while trying to escape conflict in Syria. Only his father survived. The family had hoped to go to Canada where they had relatives but the Canadian government turned down their request for a visa so the family opted for the more dangerous journey by sea into Europe.
After losing his whole family, which was his entire reason for risking the dangerous journey, the little boy's father went back to Syria along with the recovered bodies of his sons in order to bury them. He no longer hopes to leave. Instead, according to news articles, he is working with other refugee families trying to make their lives a little easier. His brother’s family however has been given the visas to Canada that he had hoped to gain. At least part of that little boy's family will have a chance to start a new life. 
Two weeks ago in New York City a janitor at Holy Child Church returned from his lunch hour to discover a tiny baby wrapped in towels and lying in the manger of the newly constructed nativity scene. His umbilical cord was still attached and he barely weighed five pounds. It seems his mother had determined that her infant son was better off in the care of the church than with her. New York has a law that allows parents to leave a child at a church, a fire station or hospital without any questions asked – this law is designed to for parents who do not want their child and might neglect or abuse the baby, or for parents who know they cannot possibly care for children but want them to live. Many people have applied to adopt the baby including some people from Holy Child Church. 
Last week I heard the story of an immigrant woman who was left in the Arizona desert after escaping desperate poverty and civil unrest in her home country. She had crossed the southern border into the United States. Too weak to walk any farther, she was left by the 'coyotes' - the men who guide people illegally over the border -- having only a small bottle of water and a flashlight to help her attract the border patrol - which would be her only chance of survival. She spent a night fending off two real coyotes who were apparently waiting for her to die. Seeing the coyotes eyes in the dark filled her enough fear to keep her going until she was picked up later the next day by the border patrol. 
After two weeks of rest and recuperation when her frantic family had no idea what had happened to her, the woman was able to join family members who had been anxiously waiting for her. She now has a work permit and is working to send money home for the care of her children who she had to leave behind. Leaving home was the only way she could think to care for them.
   
Just before Christmas a young man I did not know came to ask me for some bus tickets. He was hoping to go home for the holidays. I asked him where he was going thinking that he was going to ask for a greyhound ticket to someplace out of state, but he was only going to a suburban city. I handed him a city bus ticket thinking that surely his family would help him after he got there but he looked distressed and said: I hope they will let me in. So I asked if he would like another ticket just in case he was turned away. He said yes looking very relieved. I wished for him a Merry Christmas and told him I would keep him in my thoughts and prayers as he thanked me and headed out. 

Families are a microcosm of society at large. There are some warm and wonderful families that nurture and provide love, there are others that destroy the spirit and where members fail to thrive. There are families with more than they need and other families with nothing left to lose. But the health of families affects the health of all humanity. Healthy families nurture not only their own members, but the people who come into contact with them. Families that are unhealthy or struggling without assistance spread their distress to those around them. Everything is connected; if we want a world that is healthy, just and peaceful… we have to begin with the smallest unit of society. We begin in our own families but we are connected to the larger human family, which calls us to care for more than just our own. All people are part of our human family.
Living in close proximity and in relationship to others requires compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, along with the ability to forgive and above all to love. In addition we need to live the peace we want to see and have hearts filled with gratitude - which means contentment with what we have over and above our basic human needs.
Even in the best of times family life offers challenges. For families living in poverty, when the head of the household is unemployed, when there is serious illness or incapacity of some kind, challenges increase pressure on the bonds that hold the family together. In situations of war, natural disaster, or other violence, the bonds are further stressed.
All parents are given the responsibility of caring for their children, not as extensions of themselves, but as individuals with their own destiny. Parents have hopes and dreams for their children, but their particular gifts and talents along with the experiences that the child has not only in their family but in their growing social surroundings ultimately shapes who they will become, what opportunities they are given and the pathways open to them as adults.
 
Creating a world that gives children a chance to develop their unique gifts is the responsibility of all people – not just parents. Raising a child is never easy, and if a family is without shelter, food, medical care, education and a safe community in which to live the chances of being successful at parenting is severely limited. Maintaining a loving family environment is overwhelming if a parent or child is trying to cope with mental illness, emotional trauma or addictions on their own. Supporting family life by advocating for fair wages, along with meeting basic needs is in the best interest of all people. 
We are one Human Family. To thrive we must care for the all the vulnerable people and protect the Earth which is our home. 

Saturday, December 26, 2015

Reflection on Christmas and Deep Incarnation



Christmas is when Christians celebrate the Mystery of the Incarnation, of God becoming flesh and living in our midst. In the last few months many people have been reading Praise Be! The Pope’s encyclical On Care of our Common Home. At the end of the book there are two prayers. I am especially drawn to the words in the Christian Prayer in Unity with Creation where it says:

Son of God, Jesus, …
You were formed in the womb of Mary our Mother,
you became part of this earth,
and you gazed upon this world with human eyes.

To say that 'Jesus became part of this earth' changes the perspective and leads to ways of understanding that might not occur when 'Jesus became man' or even that Jesus became human' is used. Jesus became part of this Earth. In light of what Pope Francis and Theologians are writing today, I am thinking that it might be possible that Christianity has at last begun the great turning away from the human centered worldview that has plagued it for some time now.     
For the past 2000 years more or less, the followers of Jesus have sought to more perfectly understand the meaning of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Millions of words have been written attempting to explain the mystery of the Word of God becoming flesh and living among us. And yet, in light of today’s scientific and theological breakthroughs, it seems we have only been scratching at the surface of the Mystery of the Incarnation.
Using human perspective as the starting point, theologians in their efforts to understand the meaning of Jesus, inadvertently managed to lift humanity up very high over the rest of creation. After all, Jesus became human which must bring honor to humans at least a little.  
But believing that the Incarnation honored humans, also led, or perhaps misled, theologians and philosophers to believe that in the Divine plan for Salvation, only humans mattered. Human life, human suffering, and human sin were believed to be the only reason for God to become one with us.    
And for hundreds of years we have been able to read scripture without even noticing the many signs that indicate that that might not be true; Paul says all creation is groaning; the Book of Job has God confront human aggrandizement by asking:
“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” And Psalm 104 tells us the “The young lions roar for their prey, seeking their food from God. When the sun rises, they withdraw and lie down in their dens. People go out to their work and to their labor until the evening. O God, how manifold are your works. In wisdom you have made them all: the earth is full of your creatures.” Humans are one species among many.
Humans are precious to God, but they are not the only precious ones. In her book Ask the Beasts:Darwin and the God of Love, (London: Bloomsbury 2014.) Elizabeth Johnson cites verses from both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament that testify to the care that God has for all of Creation without at any time elevating humans over the rest of creation. In fact, scripture overall, paints an incredible picture of community. In Johnson’s words:
"We (humans) are situated within, not over, the magnificent circle of life, whose center and encompassing horizon is the generous God of life. This is a kinship group of hugely diverse members whose mutual relationships are enormously rich and complex. This is a kinship group of hugely diverse members whose mutual relationships are enormously rich and complex. In varied interactions each member gives and receives, being significant for one another in different ways but all grounded in absolute, universal reliance on the living God for the very breath of life. Within this guild of life the distinctive capacities of human beings are part of the picture and can be exercised without lifting our species out of creation, “as though we were demi-gods set over it.”
(Page 268-269)
When God became flesh and dwelt among us, God became one with all that is; all that God created. What I am speaking about here is what Christology is now calling Deep Incarnation.
I guess it should not be a surprise that we have only been able to scratch the surface of the meaning of Incarnation, since until recent time we have not been able to grasp how deeply embedded in creation humans are. Even though we have told creation stories that remind us that we came from the earth, and science has affirmed that we evolved from the earth, we have had a terrible time coming to terms with what it means to be of this earth.
We share DNA with all carbon life forms. Most of us have heard how closely related our DNA is to Chimpanzees or Orangutans – a little more than 98% -- but did you know that we share 25% of our genes with Rice. Sharing genes means we have a common ancestor. Scientists tell us that all plants animals and fungi on Earth have a common ancestor that lived about 1.6 billion years ago. We have evolved in exceedingly different ways but we are still related.  
Most people, I think, prefer to think of themselves as somewhat above the rest of the muddle of creation, with all of its bacteria, plants, fish, bugs, and the rather uncouth other primates and so on. But this preference has blinded us to the Divine Reality which is really pretty amazing.
Johnson writes this:
“Born of a woman and the Hebrew gene pool,” the Word of God’s embodied self, became a creature of Earth, a complex unit of minerals and fluids, an item in the carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen cycles, a moment in the biological evolution of this planet. Like all human beings, Jesus carried within himself “the signature of the supernovas and the geology and life history of the Earth.” The atoms comprising his body were once part of other creatures. (Just as our own atoms come from others). The genetic structures of the cells in his body were kin to the flowers, the fish, and the whole community of life that descended from common ancestors in the ancient seas. “Deep incarnation” understands The Word became Flesh (John 1.14) to be saying that the flesh (sarx) which the Word of God became not only unites Jesus to other human beings in the species; it also reaches beyond us to join him to the whole biological world of living creatures and the cosmic dust of which they are composed. The incarnation is a cosmic event." (ibid page 196)
Deep Incarnation as it is used in Christology, signifies a radical divine reach through human flesh all the way down into the very tissue of biological existence with its growth and decay, joined with the wider processes of evolving nature that beget and sustain life.(ibid)
Creation is marvelously and wondrously made with humans and plants and animals all interdependent yet unique. It is not possible to separate any one creature out from the whole community of life. No creatures can exist that way – only God. Our bodies cannot function without the many microbes and bacteria that exist-in community- inside our own bodies. Scientists have recently let it be known that the microbes of our gut are responsible for many of our human emotions. In taking care of our bodies we take care of all of the bits of life dependent and interdependent with us. So to say that in Jesus God became one with us is to affirm not only human beings -- but all created matter.  It is in human beings, that matter has become conscious and with consciousness, humans have been given options. We can choose to intentionally live and work in harmony with the rest of the community of creation. Or not… but then we and all of creation suffers from our carelessness, our disregard for the community to which we belong.
We are not alone in this world. The One who set the process of evolution, diversification and complexity into motion has always been here. Through Jesus, Divine Presence became manifest, became flesh, and like us was born into the world – already connected to everything that is.  
Jesus became part of this earth in the same way that we are, yet His presence in our midst made it possible for people like us to recognize and respond to the Divine presence.
Jesus gazed upon this world with human eyes – and his gaze encompassed the whole community of life with love.
May we gaze upon this world with the same tender love.
May we open our hearts to all of Life and find joy in others.
And May we share the Good News of Emmanuel, "God with us",
and the Deep Incarnation that connects us to all life, by living consciously every day.

Saturday, December 19, 2015

I am vegan and I am okay.

I am vegan. I stopped eating animals almost a year ago. Although I stopped eating meat and fish nearly 30 years ago, I continued eating dairy and eggs from other people's chickens until last January, 2015. So I will celebrate the end of year holidays as a vegan for the first time. And so far it is tasting quite good.

I have written about this before and tried to generate some conversation, especially among people of faith or people who believe strongly, as I do, that animals did not evolve on Earth simply to be used by human beings. I don't usually get much response. I think the topic scares people because if they stopped to really think about what they were eating, they might have to change, or feel bad about past eating habits or their own inability to control diet. But feeling bad is not helpful. People should just set out to change.

Diet, after all, is culturally imparted and dependent on the particular bio-region where living creatures evolved - including humans. Our parents make the choice between animal foods and solely plant foods long before we are able to decide with any consciousness. Milk from a human mother is the only mammal food that is specifically designed for humans and that design plan is only until weaning sometime before the age of 2-3 when human bodies are sufficiently formed to process other foods. In spite of this completely obvious fact, many women have been led to believe that bottle feeding cow mammary gland secretion to their babies is just as good. Someone benefits by this approach but it is not the baby, the cow, the calf or the mother since breast feeding offers a great deal of comfort between mother and child.

Today babies begin getting solid food anytime after 4 months... earlier for some, much later for others. There are culturally adapted protocols for introducing foods to infants. In the USA pediatricians tell new moms to offer plain cereal first, followed by pureed vegetables and fruits and last of all meat of any kind. Baked or hard foods wait until the child has teeth. The body takes time to adjust and grow. Meat is the hardest adjustment and is given last. I suspect that is because meat is not an essential part of our diets and it takes enormous energy to digest.

Look this up! Animal flesh sits in the gut for at least a day, generally more, as it begins to breakdown (rot) in the gut so as to be digested. Carnivores in the animal world generally have short intestinal tracks so that rotting flesh food and byproducts get in and out quickly. Creatures that eat a plant based diet have longer intestinal tracks. Humans have a long track. The small intestine is between 6-7 meters in length. Add to this that vegans are healthier over all than omnivores. Why ever did we think we should eat meat and dairy and lots of it?


In spite of the data, human history is filled with meat eating stories. Hunting, skinning, cooking - barbecuing, gravies and meats for special events: lamb, turkey, chicken and beef. But rarely,  if ever, do humans refer to what they are eating as a formerly living creature. Who would eat veal served as "unborn baby calf?" or a roast referred to as "a piece of a cow's upper leg muscle." A cow or steer on the table is beef, wild deer or antelope is venison, in Europe a lamb is mutton, while those same animals in the farm yard or nature have different names.  Likely the name changes help anesthetize the eaters to the fact that they are eating an animal that used to live, move, eat, drink, bear young and  seek a life free from pain and oppression.

I enjoy taking my family out to dinner or having them all over for a meal of some kind. These days meat is only a side dish if it is present on the table at all. The main courses are interesting delicacies made entirely from plants. No one is starving. Everyone is healthier. And, I still get lots of compliments. Meat is not necessary. When I am responsible for the whole meal, the only meat I will order as a side dish for others who still think they need to eat animals, is chicken. At least it goes by its real name.

As children many people enjoy storybooks where animals are depicted like "odd little humans." Winnie the Pooh, Peter Rabbit, Alice in Wonderland, Frog and Toad, The Hobbit, and many many more books come to mind immediately.  We have a fascination with animals. We are curious about them and find their lives intriguing, especially as children. I think that if we ever want to give animals a real chance to survive into the future we need a new kind of animal story that depicts the horrors that animals face; loss of habitat, cruel traps, random hunting, incarceration in zoos or labs or worse, mammals conceived artificially, separated from their mothers, confined, fed with the goal of creating tasty animal protein for other mammals, and slaughtered without ever setting foot on Earth, seeing the sky, tasting grass or other natural foods. Animals raised in CAFO's (concentrated animal feeding operations) are terrorized from the moment of separation from their mothers until the day that is picked by their owners for them to die, be cut up in pieces, and served as food for other animals.

Perhaps if enough people read such stories and allowed themselves to feel the pain and injustice of the whole meat-dairy food industry people would be less likely to continue eating the same way. A few days ago a friend from the past stopped by to see me. We were just catching up. She commented to me that she no longer ate dairy products. Then she said, "I never knew that baby calves are killed so that people can drink the milk that their mothers were producing for them." When she found out she just stopped consuming dairy.  Just like that. Clearly knowledge is a very powerful tool.

If you would like to begin or continue learning, try www:onegreenplanet.org.  

What kind of animals are we anyway?  

    

Friday, December 11, 2015

slogging along

It has been a very wet week.
Monday I spent hours trying to get the water in my basement to drain.
I dug a ditch.
I used a sledge hammer to pound a steel pipe through the drain that was clogged up underneath the basement floor.
I used a "plumber's snake" through a PVC pipe after opening the drain.
I bought a pump. It was not the right kind and so I spent 3 or 4 hours bailing water with a bucket.
All this just to keep pace with what was trickling in steadily through breaches in the concrete basement floor.
Now I have the right pump but still, it can only keep pace.

I went to work where the maintenance crew and volunteers were bailing the basement of the old school building and using a shop vac that could only just keep the water out of the dining hall with constant use. Stop for a break? The water built back up.

The homeless guests who frequent the hall were grateful to be out of the rain, and many were able to assist but all in all their spirits were damp from a very wet night. A record rainfall.

And it has rained all day today as well. There is standing water on some roads and others have been washed away.

And yet, I am warm now and dry with the new pump running in the basement, the doors closed and a fire in the wood stove that is beginning to chase away the feeling of dampness that has crept into our living space.  

I think of the people on the coastal areas of Asia and the South Sea Islands and the Indigenous Tribes on the coast of Alaska and in all the places where the waters are rising and the storms are growing more intense, and I am abundantly aware that I cannot complain. All the time that I was bailing water, for enough hours that my muscles were groaning and I could hardly sit and stand the next day!-- I kept thinking of the people who could not possibly bail the sea from their homes.

When I have a moment I check in with the news from Paris hoping that against all the odds the negotiators from around the world will act on behalf of the planet and the people. But the nations that are the real polluters can't seem to commit to any agreement that has accountability written in.

Here in the United States we have more Climate Deniers per capita than any other country in the world. And, of course, we are a major emitter of greenhouse gases.  This is an embarrassement - and it makes me feel sad and frustrated and sometimes I get pretty angry at the way that those who have much are unable to recognize the need to change.

Writing in Laudato Si Pope Francis reminds me that:
"The existence of laws and regulations is insufficient in the long run to curb bad conduct, even when effective means of enforcement are present. If the laws are to bring about significant, long-lasting effects, the majority of the members of society must be adequately motivated to accept them, and personally transformed to respond. Only by cultivating sound virtues will people be able to make a selfless ecological commitment." (#211)

Cultivating sound virtues takes time. It takes teachers especially those who are willing to do with a lot less in order to show others how to step down even a little on the ladder of consumption.  It will be a long time I am afraid, too long, before a majority of the members of our society are adequately motivated and willing to transform their lives.

When things are looking pretty hopeless, like right this moment, I must intentionally stop and remember that I am not alone in the work of cultivating and renewing the earth. The Earth Community is a well connected, interrelated web of life. When we do good it affects more than just our small place in the scheme of things. Earth is the common home of billions of beings -- all infused with the desire to live.

And so I will go down to check the water level in the basement, grateful for water and life, dry socks and the energy to keep slogging along.

Friday, November 27, 2015

Reflection on Thanksgiving Day




My reflections today come from my thoughts after attending the Collins Lecture last week, especially as it collides with the myth we tell about the first Thanksgiving. Americans gather to give thanks on the Fourth Thursday of November but others in our land think about history and our ancestors differently.
"Indigenous Americans tend to see this living world as a fantastic and beautiful creation engendering extremely powerful feelings of thankfulness and indebtedness, obliging us to behave as if we are all related to one another. An overriding characteristic of Native North American religion is that of gratitude, a feeling of overwhelming love and thankfulness for the gifts of the Creator and the earth/universe. Perhaps the most important aspect of indigenous cosmic visions is the conception of creation as a living process, resulting in a living universe in which a kinship exists between all things. Thus the Creators are our family, our Grandparents or Parents, and all of their creations are children who, of necessity, are also our relations.
Above all else, Native American spirituality is a land-based spirituality. The relationship between the natural environment, all the creatures living within it and the people are one of mystical inter-dependence." (Johnny Reb)
Land based spirituality was integral to the land based cultures which were distinctive to the native people. There were about 1000 different tribes when the first contact was made between European explorers and the Americas. Each of these tribes was uniquely adapted to the place where they lived. Such is the way of land based cultures. So while we often refer generally to the American Indian, they were far from a mono-culture or religion.
Now the difference between a land based culture and an indigenous culture has to do with rootedness to the land. A culture without roots in a particular place can up and move at any time and wherever it lands it will adapt the place to its culture. So we can see in the USA. There is really one dominant culture that is seen regardless of the part of the country. It is quite remarkable, though there is wide variation in the landscape, the culture remains essentially the same. Sure there are a few variations, but for the most part it is the same. In hot parts of the landscape there are air conditioners and in cold places central heating – but the temperature does not determine the style of clothing inside the mono culture homes. Think about it! There is a standard home, standard food, standard transportation, standard education and standard leisure time activities.
There was a time when our ancestors in faith were nomads, they took their faith with them but they did not wander far outside the bio-region they were adapted to.
With the spread of Christianity through global conquest, the culture of the conquerors was imposed along with Christianity which had by that time become un-rooted to the land.
In scripture, luscious green land with flowing water is always the image of Paradise for the desert people who first held the writings as sacred. Those of us who live in such an earthly Paradise, have another task, and that is to protect and care for the land that has become our home - without inflicting damage to the land that is home for others.
This makes me think of the story of the Garden of Eden and how Adam and Eve were not content with Paradise. They were tempted to want more and I think that is the same for the dominant consumer culture that is spreading around the world.
In the dominant culture people give thanks for family and friends and for their homes and jobs and health – and all in all they are grateful not to be poor.
Indigenous people thanked God for life; for trees, and plants; for fish, birds and all animals. In their own natural setting, indigenous people were content with what they had and they showed their gratitude by tending the garden of their environment. Stripped from their land they became rootless, despondent and depressed. Many died.
On this Thanksgiving Day Weekend, I would invite all who read this, wherever you may be to begin or continue the task of becoming rooted in the place in which you live. Get to know the native plants and trees. Discover who lived on the land before you or your ancestors and gain from their knowledge of paradise on earth so that together we can preserve the Earth. Let all people from the dominant culture learn to live more simply so that our excess goods can go the people for whom they are necessities.
And let us all learn to live in gratitude. 
Giving thanks each day for life; for the beauty of the earth; for sky and wind and water; for the joy of creatures;  for the love of family and friends, and for all who are now a part of the place where you can now gather to give thanks and praise.
  

Saturday, November 21, 2015

Doctrine of discovery

I had the opportunity to attend the Collins Lecture on Thursday. Every year Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon invites speakers who can challenge the participants to grow in their theological/spiritual understanding and practice. In the past they have had speakers like Bishop Desmond Tutu, Richard Rohr and Bill McKibbons. This time the topic was timely yet somber. Participants were asked to listen to the stories of people who inhabited the Pacific Northwest prior to the coming of Europeans.

The beginning included a great deal of ritual and as always the native cultures are far less enamored with clock time than Europeans have been taught to be. The gathering starts when the people have assembled and are ready. The gathering, as well as individual talks, ends when the speakers are finished. If a person has not participated with the native population before they are often very stressed by the fluid time frame. There is something very northern European about timeliness that has been ingrained into the psyches of most European Americans as well as those who have been enculturated to believe that time is fixed and therefore all things must fit with the workings of a machine - the clock.

In the case of the event on Thursday, the room was ready and the attendees had gathered but some of the most important guest speakers and presenters were not ready. The invited dignitaries included the last traditionally trained tribal leader of a tribe that comes from the northern coast of British Columbia. It would have been a grave insult to begin without this elderly man whose spirituality not only glowed outward from his eyes, but has been infused into the many people he has taught over the years. He was whisked away by the elders of his tribe as a small child so that the officials from the Canadian government would not take this descendant of chiefs from time's beginning to a residential school to be indoctrinated with western ways that would prevent his learning what he needed to guide his people as an adult. Under the guidance of elders he learned their traditional way of life, a life in harmony with creatures and all of creation, a life of gratitude and joy. And so we waited until this 87 year old spiritual leader was present and ready to pray over us in his native tongue as he came in down the aisle with other leaders from his tribe. He brought grace to the gathering and added to the sense of the sacred.

Speakers focused on the 'legal and religious justifications' for the conquest of the Americas by European Christians. I heard enough about the Doctrine of Discovery and Manifest Destiny to make me feel very sad -- but not enough to feel fully enlightened so I ordered several books including one by Robert Miller who was the first speaker: Native America, Discovered and Conquered: Thomas Jefferson, Lewis and Clark, and Manifest Destiny. (Winnipeg, Canada: Bison Books, Jul 1, 2008)

It was hard to hear stories of people ripped away from their land, forced to sign treaties that were never honored, denied the ability to teach their own children, and oppressed by the very nation that proclaims to be the land of the free. After a while I began to feel so down that I wanted the presentation to stop or else for the speakers to give me something to do to bring about healing or change. I found myself expressing this at lunch time and breaks. "Why won't the speakers give us something to hang onto? A door to go through to being fixing things or to make things better?" It has taken me some time to really process what I heard, and to know they did it just right.

Several times speakers said that it was not their desire to cause guilt, and that individual apologies were not wanted. After all, they were perfectly aware that the people gathered to hear them were not individually responsible for the past. What they did ask from us was to recognize that regardless of the "no fault" reality for present day people, present day European Americans and all who have been assimilated into the American way of life, really do benefit from the tragedy that befell the native people of this land - that is their reality.

As beneficiaries there are somethings that we must do. First of all we must learn a new language; the language of the place where we now live. This does not mean learning to speak fluently in a native tongue, rather it means to learn the names of the people who lived in this place before us and acknowledge the place names, rivers, mountains etc. that come from the native languages. For me that means recognizing and learning about the Clackamas Chinook people as well as the Calapooia tribe. I am grateful that I have already begun to do this in a small way, but recognizing how important it is I have ordered some books that will help me to grow in knowledge. I also am making some efforts to participate in other events and efforts that include the wisdom of the native populations.

I have several grandchildren who are registered tribal members. Through their parents, my daughters and sons in law, I am learning. Sometimes, I am learning as they learn since their heritage was not passed down. Together we are trying to put our roots down more deeply into the land, learning from the wisdom that is here, healing ourselves as we heal the land.

I know now that it is not the job of the native people to make me feel better about the past. It is my job to support the native people as they work to renegotiate treaties, reclaim their heritage and protect the land and the creatures that they so ardently desire to protect. In this way, working, together all the people currently in this land can make the future a kinder more loving place for everyone. At least that is my hope and prayer.       

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Friday, November 13, 2015

from the inside out

I feel hollow tonight. Empty. Drained.
I read the news from Paris and feel sick.
I think of the young people at the concert and I think of my children and grandchildren.
This intraspecies war has been raging far too long.
I do not want to be afraid. I do not want my children to be afraid.
I don't want anyone to live in fear.
But when I hear world leaders saying that they will not give in to fear, I do not understand.
At a very deep level something is wrong and we can't pretend that just doing more of the same without being afraid can possibly work. Fear arises naturally. It is the warning our bodies give us when we need to be careful, to change our direction, take evasive action or rethink what we are doing.
However can people, mothers, fathers, lovers and others not be afraid when they see such carnage? such meaningless loss of life?

It sickens me that anyone or any group should kill innocent people.
But I wonder, what does it mean to be innocent? Not as an individual, I know what that means.
But as a species; are we innocent?
Can we be innocent if at the same time we remain unaware of how our actions affect others?
I believe in the goodness of people, my family, friends and neighbors, the people across the borders and around the world. People are people.

Mature and healthy people do not choose to intentionally hurt others when they go about their daily lives, going to work or school, shopping and cooking, tending to the sick and watching the little children. To be human is to care about others, to love and be loved, to wonder and learn, to create art and dance, to sing and enjoy the world in communion with others. How is it that so many of us have begun to move through the world distracted, protecting ourselves from others rather that reaching out to share in our humanity?

Something is wrong. It seems that some basic part of our humanity has become infected with something sick or evil, with something that is destroying our species from the inside out.
How can we attend to this threat if we allow innocence to absolve us from discernment? How is it that we can always blame those others - whoever they are - asserting that they never have a reason to rage? As if they have given up their humanity by choice, for no reason except a desire to continue killing.. How can that be?

What has happened to the human family? With some so wealthy that they are oblivious to the destitution of others, and some so poor that they cannot rise up? Yet most are just trying to live their lives, going about their activities sadly unaware that they have become disconnected from the world community; avoiding the reality that something is dreadfully wrong.

Until a moment like this forces us to stop and reflect.
Carnage again. It is not human. Something is wrong.

What should we do?