American Indian Reflections: August 2006 Archives

There were 500 plus nations in North America before Columbus, many more on the southern continent. Languages as different from one another as Korean is not the same as French. Different forms of social organization. Theologies and spiritual practices radically different from one nation to the next. Yet, we continue to hear of Native American spirituality as if there were an identifiable practice under patent to the "race."

For some years I have kept my Cherokee background close, only talking about it with friends. It was part of me, but to share it among UUs caused folks to approach me gushing about their spirituality. When I heard their story it seemed to be some sort of bird watching thing. My grandmother spoke Cherokee, had her distinct set of practices, and was a nominal Presbyterian.

I recoil from the term Native American if I detect that the speaker (or writer) is writing as if this term designates a definite group of people.

(I used to like the terms First Nations, or First Peoples - they had a plural ring to it. For a collective term I prefer American Indian, and then when designating a particular group of people say Cherokee, I use Cherokee Indians.)

I see an analogy between cross cultural borrowing, and scholarship. If one is writing a paper, one makes an effort to cite the source of an idea, or information. If one quotes, one makes sure to quote exactly. It is not appropriate to distort what another writer has written in order to make polemic. And if the other writer has expressly forbidden the use of his/her words, it is considered unethical to use those words in one's paper. Most writers agree, and vigorously defend their copy-write.

The Hopi do not want any one using their ceremonies. The Cherokee say you are welcome to incorporate some of practices, but do it with respect. The Reform Jews say learn from us, but do not do our ceremonies out of context. Orthodox and Conservative Jews are insulted by non Jews doing Jewish things.

At the Super Bowl 2005 there was a program of dancers in what appeared to be native Americans fashion, doing a modern dance, dressed in totally green lycra...save for the head dresses, that is an example of distortion and misuse of Native cultural ways .

This is a summer rerun from a post of November 2005

in the early nineteenth century, many Cherokee moved from Georgia, and North Carolina to Texas which was still a province of Mexico. They were seeking to avoid the many oppressions that they experienced in the United States.. They went West before the forced march to Oklahoma and Arkansas known as the trail of tears.

After the defeat of Mexico by white Anglo insurgents,* the Cherokee lands in Texas were confiscated and violently attacked by the "Texas Rangers." Many moved south and continue as the Cherokee Nation of Mexico. The United States contingents of the Cherokee include the Cherokee Nation located in Oklahoma as well as many independent bands in North Carolina, Alabama, Texas, California, and gatherings in other states.

It is an interesting site, they are claiming a deeper history in Mexico than I can verify. The linguists point out Cherokee is a Iroquois language. It is more likely the Cherokee moved south from the Great Lakes than they moved from Mexico and back again.

What is adult religious education?  Many of our programs seem like watered down college courses, we have UU history courses and Bible study courses.  Some of our programs are designed to enable congregational transformation, such as Weaving the Fabric of Diversity, or Welcoming Congregation.  I have taught Spiritual Autobiography Courses, and quite a few new UU workshops.    I think I have taught Adult RE on and off for forty years, beginning as a young adult, then a lay leader, and more recently as a clergy person.
Most adults want education that helps them solve pressing problems in their life, and so while there are people who want to study UU history, and some others who want to take a course writing a sermon, the married couples with children don't come out for adult religious education classes.  It isn't a high priority for them.  So my students have been mainly young adults, and older single adults, with a few empty nesters.  But when I have co-taught marriage enrichment workshops, the committed couples made arrangements to attend.  It was so important to them, that they organized child care, or in one case the church provided child care. 
But where to find a couples enrichment program aimed at Unitarian Universalists that functioned to build both relational skills and spiritual values.  We have a new curriculum (in field test stage) and it is downloadable from the UUA Web Site.  It is designed to be inclusive of all couples, it does not assume marriage or holy union or other formal commitment.  I haven't fully examined it yet, but I will.  I am impressed with what I have looked at. 
  Marjorie and I have received training and were certified by the Association for Couple's Enrichment and worked with a peer group of trainers associated with Andover Newton Theological School.  It will be good to see a Unitarian Universalist resource for this work.
From the web site describing the new curriculum: 
Principled Commitment [has been designed to] enhance and support long-term, committed relationships that reflect the values of Unitarian Universalist Principles. Unitarian Universalist congregations can provide a nurturing environment for interpersonal relationships, and our basic Principles provide an excellent framework to support and enrich marriages and other blessed unions between loving partners.
Principled Commitment seeks to deepen participants' ethical, spiritual, faith, and Unitarian Universalist identity development. This is accomplished through the theme and activities of each workshop. In addition, each workshop includes a guided meditation and suggested readings from Singing the Living Tradition. Facilitators are welcome to incorporate meditations and readings from other sources or to invite workshop participants to share poems and readings relating to each workshop's theme.

On August 7, 1964,  after an alleged incident with a North Vietnam gun boat  the Congress of the United States passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution:

The resolution gave President Lyndon Johnson broad powers in dealing with North Vietnam, including sending U.S. troops.  News coverage relied almost entirely on official U.S. government sources so Americans assumed the North had launched an unprovoked attack. Two courageous senators, Wayne Morse (D-OR) and Ernest Gruening (D-AK), provided the only "no" votes. (peacebutton.info)

The incident never occurred. The President lied to the people of the United States. *

What concerns me is the liberal's capacity to forget the lessons of history.  People continue to experience shock and outrage that Bush lied about Iraq's nuclear weapon's program.  The Weapon of Mass Destruction rationale was a hoax, and that hoax was exposed by the weapon's inspectors before the invasion - Bush, Rice and Powell's lies were demolished by solid evidence by scores of independent sources.  It seems to me that if one is outraged now that may indicate that you refused to look at the evidence before the invasion.

But what concerns me is that after the liberal becomes outraged, "we were lied to",  they go in search of a Democrat that will replace him.  Lying to the citizenry is a characteristic of the entire political culture.  We must go beyond consumer politics, we must stop enabling a process by which "we chose" a pre selected candidate who tells us the lies we want to hear during his (or her) campaign.  To learn from history is to demand accountability,  to engage critically and assume that they are lying until they prove to you that they care about truth.

The Tonkin Gulf resolution was passed by Congress 42 years ago, the United States sent teen agers into Vietnam and they came back in body bags.  I knew too many of those soldiers to forgive and forget.  They were misused by a corrupt political process.  If we would only learn from history we would learn that "Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely." The arrogance of Presidents is because of the power we give them with no accountability, and the result has been absolute corruption.  Those envisioned this federal republic were afraid that that would happen, and they tried to build checks and balances into the structure of the republic.  But they also assumed an informed and critical citizenry.  Perhaps we need to reconsider the building blocks of procedural democracy in our times, how can we hold power accountable?  A liberal religious political theology must take our experience with politicians that distort the truth seriously.    To be a prophetic religion we must address the corruption of our time.

*For those who believe lying to mislead people into supporting a war is a characteristic of the Republicans, Johnson was a Democrat.  We can document the lies of Carter and Clinton to justify military misadventures as well.  Lying to the public is a bi-partisan activity. Based on long observation of the American Presidents, Native Americans  would observe that lying seems to be part of the job description.  Now some citizens might resist the Native claim, even though the facts show deliberate falsehoods were spoken by President after President,  those who identify as "white"  seem to think that the "savages" weren't real Americans.

The Rev. William Sinkford, President of the Unitarian Universalist Association recently wrote about worship, the following is a selection:

In many congregations I visit, the sense of awe, the sense of reverence, are growing with the sense of celebration. And my sense of excitement is growing as our worshiping communities live out the promise of what our faith can be.
Sinkford refers to Unitarian Universalist communities as worshipping communities, and we often think of our congregations from that frame of reference. In this essay, he is arguing that there is a revival in the quality and excitement of the worship experience in many of our congregations, and change makes us stronger as worshipping communities.
Has religious community always been this way? Is this a permanent fact of religious community. Sinkford asserts:
Worship is the central act of the religious community-not committee meetings or coffee hour, despite jokes to the contrary. The root of the word worship is the Anglo Saxon for worth, and worship is the way we celebrate what we hold worthy. We UUs together hold many values worthy, so the emerging common elements in our worship may simply be the way we express our faith community's common ground.
Is our common worship actually the way we express our common ground? Is that why Sinkford asserts that it is the central act of our religious community? We are living in a time of unprecedented social and cultural change. Will worship continue to be the central act of religious community in the world that is emerging?
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Organizing worship as an activity is not a universal characteristic of all human communities. Native American scholars agree that Eastern Woods indigenous peoples had no worship services before the conquest (before 1492.) The villages had rites of passages and celebrations, but no time was set aside to praise God, or celebrate that which is worthy. There are plenty of stories of Native people finding the notion of sitting down for an couple hours on a special day to relate the Holy absurd. "We live with the Holy," they replied, "every day and every activity is spirit filled."
Young men and young women were expected to have "original revelations of the divine" as part of becoming adults. The rite of passage that the conquerors culture has chosen to call "the vision quest" was not a search for a personal spirituality. It was a way of knowing essential for participation in the common life of the community. To be a wise woman or man was to be a spirit-filled person. Those who were not spirit-filled were not to be trusted--not trusted with the hunt, not trusted with care of the household, not trusted with community governance, not trusted with relations with other communities, not trusted in war.
Worship was the not the central act of the various communities of Eastern Woods indigenous peoples, but they were not less "religious" for their lack of worship ... at least not as we intuitively use the word €˜religion.'
However, the indigenous peoples of the Eastern Woods lived in societies that were not divided into rich elites and impoverished laborers, and which did not distinguish between sacred and profane. These societies knew no patriarchy. (All of these innovations the native peoples came to know after 1492, and it was then that they began to set aside time and places for worship.)
Let us think about the long history of the homo sapiens. I would suggest that for most of that history the spiritual life of human beings in community has had more in common with the indigenous peoples of this land than with peoples who organized "religious communities" separate and apart from the society as a whole.
Religious communities organized as voluntary organizations separate from society as a whole assume societies in which religion is contention with secularity, and/or with alternative ways of being religious.