Well, last week’s blog proved to be quite “prophetic” didn’t it?
“The Donald” has lived up to his Scottish name and is now a ‘world ruler’ and the “Look out for me and my clachan” vote won the day with the ‘married white men’ demographic determining the election outcome!
One camp is exultant the other devastated. There is however only one important question:
What next?
Let’s begin this blog where we left the last one ….with another verse from the Psalms:
“But NOW Lord, what do I look for? ……MY hope is in YOU.” (Psalm 39:7)
And let’s see what more, we can learn from history……..
When our family of 9 were about to set off for this New World 22 years ago we were given a prophecy.
“When the first Ulster Scots came to America they fought the Indians and fought creation. You will be friends with the Indians and be friends with creation.”
When we arrived, Father simply said “Make friends and be friends.” and over the years some people from the first nations here have welcomed us and become our closest friends, not by our design but by His.
Concerning friendship, Ohiyesa (pictured above) writes in The Soul of an Indian,
“Among our people friendship is held to be the severest test of character. It is easy to be loyal to family and clan, whose blood is in our own veins. Love between man and woman is founded on the mating instinct, and is not free from desire and self seeking, but to have a friend and to be true under any and all trials is the truest mark of a man. The highest type of friendship is the relation of ‘brother-friend’ or ‘life and death friend’ ….. It is without thought of pleasure or gain, but rather for moral support and inspiration. Each vows to die for the other, and nothing is denied the brother friend, but neither is anything required that is not in accord with the highest conception of the Indian mind.”
This seems akin to the sort of friendship Jesus invites us into in John 15 – a more noble aspiration than the depiction of “Friends” in the popular American sitcom of that title!
“It is easy to be loyal to family and clan whose blood is in our own veins” Ouch! that hit home….”But I need to look out for me and my clachan!”
Our fear based reaction and the sectarian spirit that now grips America stands in contrast to the Lakota prayer, Mitakuye Oyasinin, which affirms “You are all my relatives.”
Left unhealed I realize our fear based wounds will simply continue to wound.
So we have sought to come to America this time in humility as learners rather than teachers, as the wounded rather than the healers for I believe the very people we originally came to ‘civilize’ hold the key to our healing as broken children of the European “Enlightenment” that was actually a “Darkenment” of our experience of the Spirit.
Our native friends who have embraced Jesus have taught us that the main fault line between the Native Americans and the New Americans was spirituality vs. materialism. Jesus said the same thing in this way, “You cannot serve God and Mammon (material things)” (Matt.6:24)
Of course there are natives who have grown happily rich on casino earnings and newcomers who are deeply spiritual, but Ps.118:8 remains the test for each soul “Do I, in truth, trust in Creator/God or trust in man (including myself)?”
The native people did not at first seem to have any difficulty with Jesus. Ohiyesa quotes one elder,
“I have come to the conclusion that this Jesus was an Indian. He was opposed to material acquisition and to great possessions. He was inclined to peace. He was as unpractical as any Indian and set no price upon his labor of love. These are not the principles upon which the white man has founded his civilization. It is strange that he could not rise to these simple principles which were so commonly observed among our people.”
Ohiyesa comments, “I confess I have wondered much that Christianity is not practiced by the very people who vouch for that wonderful conception of exemplary living. It appears that they are anxious to pass on their religion to all others, but keep very little of it for themselves. ……even in the white men who professed religion we found such inconsistency of conduct. They spoke much of spiritual things while seeking only the material. They bought and sold everything;time, labor, personal independence, the love of woman, and even the ministrations of their faith! The higher and spiritual life, though first in theory, was clearly secondary, if not entirely neglected in practice. ”
This blog is entitled Be-LOnGings because our deepest LOnGing is to Be connected. If we fail to make that connection with our Creator we will seek connection with ‘created things’ Any thing (including religious things) that has supplanted God and become the primary object of our affection is what the bible calls a dead ‘idol’
“They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the creator who is forever praised. Amen.”(Romans 1:25)
We are meant as spiritual beings to find life in connection with God – who is Spirit.
….and being with you nothing else I desire.”(Ps.73:25)
I believe it is not just a commandment of the old covenant but a promise of the new covenant that God will keep and fulfill in us, “You SHALL have no other God’s before me.”