Lessons from Native North Americans

Reading Elias Boudinot's An Address to the Whites, he used a scripture I hadn't read in awhile that is beautiful. He was the editor of the first Cherokee (and native American) newspaper. Unfortunately his eloquent words didn't prevent the genocide of his people. Also reading Chief Seattle's speech has some challenging confrontations to Christianity that still apply today to our actions in the world and the God we represent.

So, Chief Seattle's words, "Your God is not our God! Your God loves your people and hates mine. He fold shis strong rpotecting arms lovingly about the pale face and leads him by the hand as a father leads his infant son-- but He has forsake His red children... The white man's God cannot love our people or He would protect them. They seem to be orphans who can look nowhere for help. How then can we be brothers?"

Africa's been on my heart a lot lately, and I think that passage made me think if they would not ask the same question of God's existence and our "brotherhood" when we fail to be the representation of Christ to those in need. Last night I had a dream I was getting on the plane to go serve with YWAM there, maybe it was a premonition. :]

And the verse Boudinot quotes (in context) Acts 17:24-27, "He is the God who made the world and everything in it. Since he is Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn’t live in man-made temples, and human hands can’t serve his needs—for he has no needs. He himself gives life and breath to everything, and he satisfies every need. From one blood [one man] he created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries. His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us." So beautiful.

***
On a continued note, of Chief Seattle's Speech, I love these closing parts:

"Every part of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plan and grove, has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished. Even the rocks, which seem to be dumb and dead as the swelter in the sun along hte silent shore, thrill writh memories of stirring events conneted with the lives of my people, and the very dust upon which you now stand responds more lovingly to their footsteps than yours, because it is rich with the blood of our ancestors and our bare feet are concious of the sympathetic touch. ... And when your children's children think themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop, upon the highway, or in the silence of the pathles woods, they will not be alone. In all the earth there is no place dedicated to solitude. At night when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled them and still love this beautiful land. ... for the dead are not powerless. Dead, did I say? There is no death, only a change of worlds."

had to say.

Lately I have been itching to write, but there seems to be an overload of just what I want to say. But amongst thoughts on art, consumerism, status quo, and class that are probably more interesting and actually I'd rather write about-- this has been bugging me the most.

McCain has said that he see's the real issue facing American how to deal with the challenge of radical Islamic extremism, and his running platform has been all about his foreign policy experience and knowledge of the Middle East, etc. BUT he's not only once, but repeatedly mixed up information- interchanging Sunni for Shiite and misidentifying who is supporting who. THESE ARE MAJOR DIFFERENCES.

To quote an article, (from the Washington Post)-
"He said several times that Iran, a predominately Shiite country, was supplying the mostly Sunni militant group, al-Qaeda. In fact, officials have said they believe Iran is helping Shiite extremists in Iraq. Speaking to reporters in Amman, the Jordanian capital, McCain said he and two Senate colleagues traveling with him continue to be concerned about Iranian operatives "taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back."
Pressed to elaborate, McCain said it was "common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that's well known. And it's unfortunate." A few moments later, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, standing just behind McCain, stepped forward and whispered in the presidential candidate's ear. McCain then said: "I'm sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not al-Qaeda."

This is a BIG deal. To me its entirely disheartening to see someone who wants to lead and represent America being so... disinterested? that he doesn't have time to get his facts straight, or learn the difference between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. Epsecially while he promotes that as a strong point... even little things like not learning how to pronounce people's names... it makes him come across as "the ugly American" stereotype.

Also on a different note, if our biggest challenge is going to be Islamic extremism (which, I won't comment on) I think we really need to focus on communication, peace, cultural understanding-- not creating a new enemy for America or an us vs. them mentality. We need to be working, as individuals, to break out stereotypes and prejudices against people from the Middle East. The best way to do that of course is to befriend immigrants and refugees, Americans of Middle Eastern heritage -- already around ... but if that's too scary and uncomfortable at least pick up a history book, a novel, or watch a movie by a director/author from the Middle East. It worries me to see this 'enemy' mentality beginning and the fear and ugliness it brings out in people.

Jesus said to love our enemies, and pray for those that hate us. I'd like to see that happening, to see Americans (and more speficially Christians) reaching out to understand and relate to Muslims. We're supposed to stand apart by our radical love.

** To clarify, this note is not about politics, my point is the concern I have for our Middle Eastern brothers & sisters and the way our foreign policy and attitudes will effect them, and I want to encourage love and understanding not prejudices. I'm not attempting to be an objective journalist, so if you feel this is one-sided, good, do some studying... but, the point is this is a concerning goverment/national attitude.**

Consumption

Shortly after WWII and economist advisor wrote this which has become the standard for America...

"Our enormously productive economy... demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and using of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption. ... We need things consumed, burned, up, replaced, and discarded at an ever accelerating rate."

Currently 99% of the things we buy are discarded/used/replaced within 6 months.

We see more advertisements in one year than people 50yrs ago did in their entire lifetime. Our "national happiness" peaked and started decreasing in 1950 at the same time consummerism/advertisments began to increase. What is an ad anyway except selling discontent to convince you, you need something more/new/different?

[Short movie that breaks down the whole process: www.storyofstuff.com and things to do about it: www.storyofstuff.com/anotherway.html

you watch the stars fade, they gather you back to their home.

Fearing is such a useless pursuit.
The future never occurs as I have imagined or worried about it,
and had I the foresight to worry about the correct things,
I'd never change them by the worrying anyway.

Life unfolds, like a flower. Unravels like a scroll,
revealing its deeper beauty, its deeper pain
it's hidden mysteries...
I want to wake wrapped in them.
"For, I will be satisfied when I awake in Your presence."
I love, horridly, miserably, humanly...
but as often as I weakly and halteringly stumble into the sunlight
as often as I blink before the brightness of His Glory--
I am changed.
Into a strong, braver self.
I lack courage.
I lack consistancy.
In short, I lack it all.
but my need makes me in the perfect position to recieve the One who is all.
To dependently sit at His feet. I am learning that childlike trust, its been a slow process that's taken me through a series of events I wouldn't have desired had I forseen them... but from it all arises the peace from letting things go into His hands, from knowing that grace abounds deeper than any of my failings.

Truth, not theories. Not loving and embracing ideas but realties, revelations.
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the holy consuming fire, and the voice of the wind-- the Holy Spirit.
I want the reality of the spiritual world as rich as I percieve the physical with my senses.

...and all of these things are being developed in the simplest moments of eating coffee icecream with Nano and Daniela in our kitchen, painting a flock of blue birds across our wall, trailblazing with my dad on the coast, resting my head on a table in some diner to resist a laughing spell, or wathcing people on the bus. Life is rich with the image of God, and if I open my eyes I see Him everywhere. He's near. So near.

I hurt because I am alive and until death I will hurt over the stamp of eternity, the fingerprint of God upon my heart. I will groan with creation and cry over movies and books and personal defeats and tragedies- and if I am among the blessed I will cry over the beauty, over the sensation of a glimpse of eternal things, over the smallest taste of communion with God and other men. And my tears will baptize my heart with gratefulness and wash my needy hands as they stretch out to be grasped by God. There is a dream inside me that will not die, that can't be extinguished... in that dream it snows inside my heart.

... In that dream I am finally awake.

its me and the moon, she says.

i started thinking about this year, its almost over. im not sure how i feel about it. a lot of this year was difficult. but, it was pretty joyous too.

this year i:
x told a boy i was in love with him. (silliness.)
x lived in montana, brazil, and maryland.
x forgot how to smile, and remembered.
x experienced two of the best weeks of my life.
x learned a lot about trust.
x learned it was okay to cry in front of people. (thank you)
x lived. loved. grew.
x embarked on a new adventure (well, i will at 8am Saturday morning.)

alice in wonderland-esque.

i remember watching the sunrise on a mountain on my birthday, and it feels like i hardly blinked from that moment. I'm getting older, I feel younger. Tonight I feel like i'm in highschool. It's hard to describe what that means to me. I envy people who went to regular highschool. who did all those things you watch in tv shows and movies. homeschoolers. we've managed to not share a 12-year experience with 95% of our generation. and yet, i didn't miss any of it.

i had a lot to say, it being 3:25am and all, I always do. but, it all seems like the kind of things you speak in whispers, not click out in tiny pixels. I want to lay outside on my back patio and look at the stars and breathe out tiny halos of frost. I want to remember how much this moment and eternity matter.

i'm just the kind of person that keeps a lot inside. i have to, because i'm constantly thinking... i don't think that'll change.

Come Thou Long Expected Jesus

There is something about a hymn that will tear through all the layers I've pulled over my heart and pierce me. Today I went to church with Claire and it put together a lot of things I've been thinking about lately. Humanism in Christianity, how religion isn't a dirty word despite its bad reputation-- Jesus followed traditions, Jesus didn't hate organized religion- he hated hypocrisy. He didn't abolish the synagogue-- He completed the things God set up. God set up traditions, rememberances, etc. I miss the awe and reverence of churches that don't feel the need to be relevant. Jesus Christ is always relevant. And He is the message.

I think it's really easy to get caught up in "loving" people and forget that the most loving thing you can do for anyone is introduce them to God by your actions AND words. We forget that the power is in Christ, not ourselves. "For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God." I've been thinking about how the things I'm cynical about need to sharpen me to hope, pray, and change. Knowing God. That's the call. To love, to worship, to become Theocentric- not self-absorbed. It's hard, it's bloody, it calls for the death of myself... and that's a scary thing no matter how much my Spirit yearns for it.

Sometimes I forget. Sometimes I'm blind. Sometimes I choose look away, more content with mud pies than a holiday at sea. But God, He's relentless. He refuses neutrality, He will not allow anything but Himself to satisfy me. I long for the consolation of Jesus. I had completely forgotten about Advent. About the longing for God, for the Redeemer and Saviour to come. It's so beautiful. How do I ever forget the cost of Christ taking human form, that God should be humbled on my behalf for love of me? It's amazing. And when I stop looking at myself in introspection I am overwhelmed by His greatness. That wonder and awe and worship and light return. I am so thankful for His presence.

Come Thou long-expected Jesus
Born to set Thy people free;
From our fears and sins release us,
Let us find our rest in Thee.

Israel's strength and consolation,
Hope of all the saints Thou art;
Dear desire of every nation,
Joy of every longing heart.

Come Thou long-awaited Emmanuel.

Born Thy people to deliver,
Born a child and yet a King,
Born to reign in us forever,
Now Thy gracious kingdom bring.

By Thine own eternal Spirit
Rule in all our hearts alone;
By Thine all sufficient merit,
Raise us to Thy glorious throne.

Come Thou long-awaited Emmanuel.

there's a monster in me

A friend and I were talking about Frankenstein, then I read this article in Geez! Magazine and it all echoed the same thoughts and I thought some of you would enjoy them:

"I say it with trepidation, but in some ways these homeless men, these addicted and infirm, these societal cast-offs, were strangely akin to the creatures of my Saturday night passion [classic monster movies ] Alien in appearance, ominously "other" their humanity blurred by sundry ravages of experience-- and yet I was drawn to these men in ways I couldn't fuly understand. Beneath their disfigurements and diminishments, there stirred a quality of humanness that touched me deeply."

"... What moved me was more than pity or lofty idealism. In the deepest parts of my heart I longed to know, to touch, and affirm what is sacredly, inviolably human in all of us -- especially when that humanness is assulted, vilified, or violated. .... Unconciously I was recieving from them [the monster movies] mysterious lessions in accepting the human spirit in all its harsh and alien forms. ... We label, fear, and discriminate against those whom we percieve as different, abnormal, or deformed. Just as the monsters in old movies do, they manifest some supposed defect of our humanness or some threatening "otherness" that we don't want to face."

"In a culture that prizes physical beauty and perfection, we don't want contact with the disabled and infirmed. ... [During the mob going after the monsterscene] I usually cheered for Frankenstein's monster to escape. I habored some instincitve sympathy for the misunderstood creature who has been needlessly tormented. .... What about the real monsters in our midst? Do they really exist? Are they the malformed, the abnormal, the different... the ugly. Or are they simply our own shadow side, the acute and painful awareness of our own deforminites, our own flaws and diminishments? In this interplay of life and art, I suppose we are not so muh afraid of imagined monsters are we are of the parts of ourselves that we do not want to face. Like Dr. Frankestien, perhaps it is we who create the monsters through our fears, our prejudices, and our refusal to open up to the sublime mystery of our humanness in all its forms."