I was in a three day work shop on Aboriginal Awareness, put on by Metis CFS. It is required for working there, and definitely worth taking. What a journey it was spiritually.
The first day, me and two other girls were late, so the sharing circle had started without us. So when we got there, they got us to smudge before entering the circle. Of course, being late, I was not about to ask about the significance of smudging, so I just did it. And you know what? It wasn't all that bad. I mean, how many cleansing rituals do we have as christians? the "opening prayer", the worship songs asking for forgiveness and cleansing, the songs of "entering into worship" etc... There's no real difference. It's an Aboriginal way of cleansing yourself. Asking the creator to cleanse your mind, your eyes what you see, your ears what you hear and praying that your heart will be sincere and you will speak truth. Sometimes women gesture the smoke also to their womb if they are on their "time" as a sign of cleansing as well...
I guess I see it like the early christians who still celebrated pass over. It's not sinful to practice these things, especially if you can connect with your Creator, your God through those things. It is simply that they are not your means of salvation. Smudging and sweat lodges will not get you to heaven, but if you have a relationship with your God, they can bring you closer to Him and His creation.
Noah had 3 sons. One of them stayed with noah and became the Jewish, middle-eastern nations. One went north and became the european nations. one ventured across the oceans and found land. He became the indigenous nations. So really, do you think we serve the same God? Because in Noah's time, that God was pretty new. There weren't really any rituals or Jewish traditions yet. So The God and Creator that Aboriginal people worship, to me, is the same one and only God, with a different centuries filled twist. They may not have been God's "chosen people", but neither were the greeks or the romans or the english or irish.
In all honesty, I think that all Native people needed in the first place was a "hey! Did you hear the good news? Jesus, God's son died for us, and we can be intimately close with the creator!"...then, if we left them with that and let them worship in their own way, it would be pretty awesome to see I think.
Apparently the last residential school closed in 89...bet you didn't know that. it's more recent than my birth date. "Geeze! Get over it already!" we say... "get over your years and years of daily rape and physical abuse!" we say "get over the cultural gennocide and take our money" we say. Hm... Sounds fair...coming from someone mennonite, (whose people are STILL living in colonies from their oppression) or from someone irish (who may STILL have a tendancy to get angry), or someone Jewish (who may still be very defensive and upset over their history) or someone Black (who may still get aggressively upset over passive racism)...
The greatest earthly example of God's grace today, is Aboriginal people. When I, a blond haired blue eyed ancestor of a residential school teacher can sit in a room full of metis people, be welcomed to smudge with them, pray with them, hear their stories, recieve their smiling friendship and acceptance, be given a gift and hear their forgiveness for what they have suffered... it is overwhelming. There were deffinately tears at this workshop on all sides.
But when an elder who has experienced horror at the hands of my race, and maybe even my own grandmother, can hug me, look me in the eyes and say "you have a beautiful spirit"...that is grace. That is real and trrue grace.
I think God has blessed me with the gift of worship. I say this because I can worship by looking at a piece of moss. By listening to music. By being sick, by being well. I can worship through my rebellion or faithfulness. I can worhsip in my failures and successes... I don't completely understand it. But these last three days, I have begun to realize that our God is not limited to european worship.
Worship is a smudge. Worship is a sun dance. Buffalo heart, tree, skin ripping and all. That is true worship of the Creator. OUR Creator.... I don't care what the old white missionaries said on Mission X 2, Creator and God are one and the same. Take it or leave it. God will still love you if you leave it, and Creator will still love you if you leave it...Because they are the same....Jesus has no substitute. God has no substitute. But God has many names. One of those names is Creator.
From what I have seen, Native people may have some random spirituality about the afterlife that's a little off, but they don't actually worship nature itself. They always worship the Creator, for giving the Nature... and they greatly respect nature...again there is more spirituality involved in that nature...such as spirit guides...but is that really so bizzare? If my spirit guide is the Bear or the wolfe, or a guardian angel...those are all just as strange. God created Bears and Wolves. and if the animal's characteristics are characteristic of me, then perhaps it is a good analogy. A good comparison and image to respect. But a guardian angel is just as foolish a thought as a spirit guide.
Also, Native prayers really just sound like Tongues to me... I'm curious if my tongues are a native language, cause that would be really cool! :P just a random blurb...
Anyway, it was a lot to think about. Today, the last day, they gave us each a gift, and that is a rock. The rock is to symbolize our spirit guides. They said to hold on to the rock and at some point, you will see the image of an animal in that rock. When you see that image, you will know that that is your spirit guide. My rock looks like it has a dog on it. So I'm not entirely sure what that means, but it seems to line up alot with grace, worhsip, faithfulness, obedience, strength, endurance, bravery, protection, submission... all noble qualities. So I'll take it. I did not feel a spiritual urgency to throw away the rock, infact, I felt God encouraging me to keep it. It was so strange to me to hear God say that.... and to not hear him say "Don't smudge!!"...So I smudged. I did it all three days, and I would do it again. I would also go to a teaching Sweat Lodge (not a healing one at this point)...
I guess what I'm beginning to see is that worship is so much bigger than us, and it encompasses so many things. I can also worship God in yoga...worshipping him for the breath in me, the movements of my body, the muscles and how much they can take... I can worhsip him for these things. I am edifying my body, relaxing it, being in tune with the gift of a body that God gave me...what is wrong with that? I sure don't feel the need to stay for meditation at the end. A walk afterwards is good enough for me...
I would love to learn some aboriginal songs, dance and drumming. I'd be the whitest native :P and I don['t think everyone at the pow wows is emotionally ready for white dancers yet. I respect that, but when they are ready, i'll be there, front and center! And until then, I surrender to God and say "here I am, I don't understand. I want to follow you, I want to marry your son Christ. He is my love... I don't know what worhsip looks like for You, but I know you want to show me. So I will obey and follow you on this journey." I know God will protect me. I am honoring Him. I cannot be cursed or possessed by honoring and persuing Him. Any demon that dares to try and overtake me, will be sorry for the day he ever tried to take God's daughter from Him.
Thanks. Meegiwich (Ojibiway for "thank you", or "finished" or "Amen")
