Native Americans can teach us so much

[Pastor Dave]

Here is article for a local newsletter I wrote, which I thought I'd share here - my raw emotional reaction to the situation of Native Americans.

Healing a Painful Past

In the middle of May, I spent one amazing week on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. What an eye-opening experience to see the devastating effects of my white European culture and how it has so seriously hurt these beautiful people.

I was volunteering for RE-MEMBER, an outreach project to the Oglala Lakota people, seeking to improve the quality of reservation life through relationships, shared resources and volunteer services. During the week, I helped with various projects and work that needed to be done, but I learned much more than what I gave.

Our history with the indigenous people of this land is filled with hundreds of broken treaties, murder, rape and dirty schemes (for example: giving tribes blankets intentionally infected with smallpox). We took away their names and gave them our names.

We visited the historical marker at Wounded Knee. The sign originally read, “The Battle of Wounded Knee”. A new small sign has been placed over the word “Battle” and the more accurate sign now reads, “The Massacre of Wounded Knee”.

A lesson I feel we are still learning is that we are all wonderful human beings (or can be). The mindset that any group of people are not “human” or are “savages” is inaccurate. There are barriers, such as prejudice and ignorance, that we need to work through. We need to listen and understand one another; understand every-other.

One Lakota man pointed out that the indigenous people of this land were the first victims of terrorism here. Another Lakota woman who was challenged about the trash on the reservation, asked back, why don’t we all look more critically at how we are polluting water and air and the very serious effects this mass polluting has had on our lives.

You and I may have had a day or a week, sometimes longer, when we are really depressed. But for a people who have suffered the way the Lakota have, there is “generational depression” which they are fighting against. There are signs that the next generation of Lakota will be doing better, but they are having to conform to a white way of life, even as they preserve their ways of life.

I felt overwhelming sadness at the loss of people who lived here for thousands of years with their meaningful way of life and their deep spirituality. I grieve for the innocence of the indigenous people who had a very difficult time understanding our concept of “owning” land and property, because for them, the land is not for any one, it is for everyone.

In our time, it is my prayer that we do better than history has shown, and listen to each other and learn, and evolve as better spiritual beings.

Pastor David

[Joolz]

Thank you so much for sharing your words, your thoughts, your heart with us, Dave. Well said.

[Burt Gummer]

1. There's no excuse for the transgressions the Native Americans suffered...none!

2. Humanoids ALWAYS have and agenda...case in point!


Thanks Dave...