I stood on the Saskatchewan prairie on a silent, crystal winter day. Rev. Stewart Folster had brought Montreal visitors to the Wanuskewin Heritage Park just north of Saskatoon. We had seen the videos and mock tipis and eaten bison burgers and wild rice salad. We had heard the songs and stories of people seeking shelter and sustenance in this place for 6,000 years. We had seen the massive stones waiting patiently, and felt the spirit of this ancient place.
Earlier, we had seen Stewart serving his people at the Saskatoon Native Circle Ministry, teaching the lessons of Jesus Christ, bathing us in smoke wafting from dried sweet grass, passing the talking stone from hand to hand around the circle of worship.
It all came together in a moment of holiness beneath the blue big sky.
The legends of Canada's first people attach them firmly to the land and all upon it. The sad plight of many natives today is largely a result of alienation from the land that we Europeans “discovered.” Natives use the land as they used Wanuskewin to cull bison herds. We own the land. Big difference.
Stewart often signs off his e-mails with Kitche Mitakwias (pronounced kshay mitakweeass): All my relations. Leroy Little Bear is a lawyer and teacher at the University of Lethbridge and director of Harvard University's Native American Program. In Advancing Aboriginal Claims, he notes that English and other Euro-languages are noun-oriented, and very good at dichotomies and categories: saint-sinner, black-white, man-animal. Amerindian languages, on the other hand, are generally verb-oriented, stressing process, actions and constant flux.
“The flux,” he writes, “gives rise to the belief that all of creation is made of energy waves. If all is animate, then all must be somewhat like humans: awareness with energy forces that we call spirit. If all have spirit, then all of creation — including animals, rocks, the earth, the sun, the moon, and so forth — are 'all my relations.'”
Even in memory, that moment gazing at the distant Saskatchewan horizon, sensing with awe God's vast creation, strikes a deep humility. If everything is spirit-filled, I am related to all creation. The concept startles one raised on King James' Genesis that gave man dominion — sovereign authority or control, according to my dictionary — over all the earth. Back home in Montreal, Rev. Richard Topping at St. Andrew & St. Paul points out that human rule over creation should mirror divine merciful rule over human beings. That perspective and Jesus' birds of the air and lilies of the field seem close to the gentle Indian way, another of Stewart's favourite expressions.
The history of Europeans' encounter with North American natives tells of missionaries who “went native,” aboriginals who converted to Christianity, and others who found sustenance in both beliefs. I am neither theologian nor great expert on native spirituality. My family tree shows no native connection, and I'm not likely to move into a tipi any time soon. Rather, a window has opened through which I see God's universe from a different perspective.
“The teachings of faith, honesty, kindness, caring, sharing, love, honour and respect are the same in both beliefs,” Stewart told me. “I don't have to give up any part of my Native spirituality to be a Christian and a follower of Christ to the fullest.”
He explained that in native spiritualities birds and animals, dying to feed and clothe us, are symbols of caring and sharing, and reminders of Christ's sacrifice for us on the cross.
This bewildered wanderer seeking God in the contemporary detritus of science has found a new path to explore. Whether our ancestors were created from Eden's dust, crawled through a hollow log, fell through a hole in the sky, or chemically created from Big Bang residue seems to matter little. The gentle rain of all my relations softens my soul's arid soil, reassuring me that I am part of an infinite Creation, and the seed of Jesus' word finds more fertile ground. Now, listening to prayers, Scripture, sermons and hymns through the filter of this humility, of all my relations, a loving God is closer, His message more heartening and richer, than ever before. God can touch us anywhere, even on a cold winter day on the endless Saskatchewan prairie at Wanuskewin. – Keith Randall is a Montreal-based broadcaster and writer.
