In March of 2012 I made a visit to Pine Ridge Lakota Reservation located in one of the poorest counties in the US. There were many aspects of this brief visit that have profoundly formed my vision of prayer and relationships.
I was invited into a sweat ceremony for prayer over a particularly painful circumstance that our host family was experiencing. At the end of the individual prayers there was a standard repeated phrase - “Mitakuye Oyasin”. The elder let me know that this was similar to how Christian’s conclude a prayer with the standard “amen.” But this phrase runs deep in the Lakota spirituality as it translates “we are all related.”
The elder’s grace and hospitality toward me revealed just how seriously he lived out that value. It’s as if he read this…
When immigrants live in your land with you, you must not cheat them. Any immigrant who lives with you must be treated as if they were one of your citizens. You must love them as yourself, because you were immigrants in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.
Leviticus 19:33-34 (Common English Bible)
As I type this, a van full of close friends of mine are rolling along interstate 70 toward Ferguson, Missouri to be present with the people there as they anticipate great pain and unrest. Essentially, this van full of advocates and peace lovers are going to promote the Lakota message that indeed “we are all related.”
On Tuesday of this week, Greg Grey Cloud, a member of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe was arrested and reportedly sent to jail for 5 hours for loudly singing a Lakota prayer as he sat in the US senate gallery. He couldn’t contain himself as he listened to the Keystone XL pipeline bill get defeated by one vote. His spirit was responding to a glimmer of hope amidst an otherwise onslaught of oppression against Native people.
His response was seen as over-reacting, emotionally charged, and flamboyant by the white majority. And there are many who have directed similar sentiments to my friends who are on their way to Ferguson.
We don’t get it. Why would you attach yourself to such mania and volatility?
It’s so difficult for a majority people so wrapped up in the normative individualistic machine of American capitalism to understand the simple (and biblical) notion that we really are all related.
There’s a tension that we all feel when we hear a call toward vulnerability. The call to truly love our neighbor as ourselves seems to stir an adrenaline that often goes one of two ways. The tension creates a tendency to overly attach ourselves to the extremes.
But right now we are being asked to hold this family tension with a faith that often transcends our rational sensibilities. The issues of Ferguson, immigration reform, and Native American reconciliation (among so many others!) are inviting us to see our minority brothers and sisters in a fresh and closer way – as actual brothers and sisters!
Our family is bigger than we first imagined.
The reality is that we are all related. It’s a truth that saturates the historic Christian faith. Some of us are wrestling with this more than ever. It’s a tension worthy of our very lives. It may ask you to take a trip to Ferguson, Pine Ridge, or attend a church of a minority demographic this Sunday.
May we take steps to embrace this way of vulnerability.
Comments