I needed the encouragement of somebody else’s post to start writing this:
Who are we? Let’s start with myself…because that’s easier to write. Or maybe just because I think of myself first???
I was born and raised in Germany. In a very, VERY fundamental Evangelical household. And very strict. The only permitted movies/shows were ‘The Walton’, ‘Little House in the Prairie’, and ‘Bonanza’. ‘The Waltons’ were so permitted that my mother walked out of an evening church service because the preacher talked too long and she did not want to miss ‘The Waltons’. But that’s a better memory than my mother walking proudly up to the front of that same church with her four girls in tow, to sit in the front row. Waiting, like everybody else a bit impationtly for the service to begin, which, contrary to typical German efficiency, started to run later and later. Finally one of the church’s leaders walked up to my mother and asked if her husband was planning to come. To which she replied that no, he was not planning to come because he was preaching that night in another church. It was a bit embarrassing when she was informed by that gentleman that my father was scheduled to preach in this church right here as well. I can’t remember what happened then, but I am sure we made it on time to ‘The Waltons’ that night.
I saw my first movie in a theatre at 16 years old when my cousins secretly took me out. I’m not sure they’ve been forgiven for that yet. My first bar-visit and alcohol was in my twenties during my nursing studies when my class mates convinced me to go out with them.
Their teachings included amongst others:
No sex before/outside of marriage
No divore
Women do not preach (unless it is on the mission field where no men wanted to go.)
No divorce
No remarriage
No alcohol, no smoking (unless it was hidden behind closed doors or in the backyard)
God is a God of love but will send you to hell if you disobey just one little rule without repentance.
In my twenties my entire family came to Canada. Here I married my ex-husband: Chinese and the pastor of a strict Evangelical church. Though far less strict than my parents. After 19 years of marriage I managed to secretly leave him and to marry again a few years after, “sins” which to this day steep me in deep sin and condemn me to hell. I am still paying for this with no contact with my children and my family, unless I repent to them, my family, my ex (probably should have put him first), and my former church. My children themselves were trained to believe this so deeply that “I cannot invite you to my wedding because I will risk loosing my entire family (grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins) if you come.”
I still do believe that my new (almost 10 years now) husband is to blame for this, because I am convinced if he were a son of Billy Graham the scenario would be different. But alas, he is not! Not at all! Not even close.
Enter the husband: He is not German, not white (not that that bad as the Chinese ex proved, but at least that one was/is a minister), but worst of all, he is not a strict Evangelical Christian. So, like me, he is on his way to hell…at least we are going together. Mind you, he has a very firm believe in Jesus, but he did not come to know him the traditional Evangelical way: The Sinner’s Prayer and baptism, but his own, very personal way, a way much more profound than the Sinner’s Prayer. Not only that but my husband is a deeply traditional Cree, a pipe carrier, sweatlodge holder and participant in other, deeply sacred ceremonies.
One of my sons asked me one time if my husband believes in God. I do not understand everything having to do with Native beliefs, but I do understand that to ask most Natives if they believe in God is to ask them if they are Native American. So I told my son that yes, he does. But what does he call Him. I answered: God, the Father, the Creator. The exact same words I use when I pray. My son asks back if it is the SAME God though. Maybe I should have been more concerned with my son’s spiritual journey at this point and asked him how many Gods he thought there were because, of course HE was/is the SAME GOD. My son has refused to talk to me since the year that conversation took place.
My husband, his parents, his grandparents is/are all survivors of the residential schools with all the physical, sexual, mental and spiritual abuses that involved. Not just in the schools, but because of that in the homes. A horror that most white people do not want to believe. Because to believe it is the stuff that gives you nightmares. Only this was (and in many families still is) reality. My husband saw and experienced horrible abuse. There are other abuses/derogatory experiences that are ongoing for him as a Native in a predominantly white society. Like being walked out of a major store after paying for his purchases while he was waiting for me to finish paying for mine. Or being yelled at for damaging a white woman’s car he hadn’t even touched till she quickly shut up when I walked around the corner. Or being stopped in the rez in the morning by the police and sharply asked if he had been drinking (he hadn’t been drinking a drop of alcohol for more years than that officer was alive), or the murder of two Native (Metis) hunters on legal territory by two white men living in the neighborhood. Or the memory of his uncle freezing to death after having been given the “Starlight Tour” by the local RCMP, (google it, though they happened in more locations than the one mentioned), and so much more. There are so many wounds and scars he has to struggle with and yet he is a truly courageous and honorable man.
Our “different” spirituality used to cause a lot of problems between my husband and myself. I put “different” because the more I learned, the more I understood how much we had in common. If we change the traditional Christian words and meanings that Jesus never used or said, the more we realize we believe the same.
Sin? The Hebrew original for the English word sin is actually much closer to the Cree words for sin, in the sense of missing the mark, taking the wrong way’.
Taking the red road means doing and behaving the same way Jesus told us to and the teachings about the red road predate the appearance of the white men.
Hell? No, traditional Cree do not believe in hell. Neither did Jesus. He never mentioned hell. What is translated as hell is an actual place that really existed outside the city of Jerusalem: A place where garbage and refuse were burned. Nor does the mention of the ‘everlasting fire’ talk about hell. Read the context. But more about that in another blog. Nor did the early church believe in hell. That teaching did not become an official part of church doctrine till centuries after Jesus’ death through primarily St. Augustine and had a lot to do with financial and political advantages for the church and the later Holy Roman Empire under Charlemagne. Actually, one should not study the history of Christian dogma without studying the political history of Europe at the same time. They go hand in hand. It is a lot easier to control an Empire if it is under the same religion as that Emporer. And even more, if that Empire and official religion promises hellfire and brimstone if you don’t follow its rules, pay monies to be forgiven, etc., or serve them with hellfire right here on earth by burning the ‘disobedient’ at the stake. A tradition followed by not just the Catholics, but Protestants as well. For example, John Calvin, a still widely followed reformist who killed ‘antagonists’ by slowly burning them at the stake. This brutality (amongst other brutalities) by the Christian church to prove the existence of a merciful God started in the 1100s and lasted into the 1800s. So in more than one way the church did not only veer away from the truth of Jesus’ teachings about love and peace and created its own hell.
In light of all this and more, it should not be a problem for us to honestly question what we have been taught and search for the truth. It what we have been taught is the truth, questioning it cannot destroy it. But if some of it was a lie, questioning it can be life changing. And that is what it proved to be for me. Creator God and Jesus are far greater than any cultural or religious box we put Him in. Learning this was eye-opening for my husband and myself, especially myself. Though easy it was not.
This is part of who we are and are becoming so far on our way to meet the Creator. And I sure hope we will never stop learning and enriching each other.
HeavenBoundEarth 