Noah, Smoke, Cicero, and the Chief

Still finding things out there that are helping these days . . .

So This is Helping

Noah Did Himself In

credit to Rabbi Silver and her sermon

So This is Helping

Here’s a couple of related stories that have been on my mind this week.

Maybe you read about the Newell family who had a dusty suitcase passed down five generations. Their great great grandfather, Major Cicero Newell, turns out, worked as a tribal liaison for the federal government back in 1880s out on what is now the land of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe in South Dakota. While there he wrote about what he described as a good friendship with Lakota leader Chief Spotted Tail. A gift was given from Chief Spotted Tail to Major Newell, an eagle feather headdress, plus a shirt and moccasins. These gifts were precious to Cicero, and he passed them on to his son, and on down the family through the generations. But you can see where this is going, right? We know so much now, of the history of boarding schools and starvation and broken treaties and genocide, and so in 2022 and these great great grandchildren Eric and James Newell looked at this suitcase differently and begin to ask good questions. James tracked down John Spotted Tail and his wife Tamara Stands and Looks Back-Spotted Tail on the Rosebud reservation in South Dakota. This couple at first think the guy on the other end of the phone must be some kind of scammer, especially when he invited them to travel to Washington to see the suitcase and what’s inside. But they took a chance and put gas in the car and sandwiches in the cooler and off they drove, across the country, to meet a stranger.

Yes, the headdress was real and belonged to Chief Spotted Tail, and eventually there was a ceremony of reception, and the tribe had meetings and decided it belonged in the museum in Pierre, and I hope to visit it the next time I drive through South Dakota.

But what I’ve been thinking most about is buried in one sentence of the article. It was that the John and Tamara stayed with James for three days. Three days. Biblical number, btw.

I’ve been thinking that it didn’t have to be that way. The Spotted Tails’s could have stayed in a hotel. They could have met at Applebees and exchanged the suitcase in the parking lot and turned around and headed home. But no, for days and days these families were together in the Newell’s home. I picture them drinking coffee at the table. Watching tv at night on overstuffed couches in a small living room. When you stay in someone’s house, you run the risk of seeing people in their pajamas, on their way to the bathroom. It’s pretty intimate.

And what were those conversations like? How could they not wonder about each of their great great grandfathers, and what kind of relationship it really was? A true friendship, like Cicero described? What did Cicero and the Chief talk about, as they sat around the campfires on the prairie? To what extent did they discuss the horrors that were happening to the Lakota? To what degree was Cicero actually a friend to the Chief or just telling himself that? How exactly did Cicero ‘liaise’ the government’s broken promises of land and food? Cicero had to know about the boarding schools that were just opening up. Did he advocate for them? Warn the Chief about them? And as these descendants sat around the kitchen table in 2022, how did they talk about that? For days and days? How brave. And beautiful.

And then the second story is that I learned that last month President Biden traveled to Arizona and spoke at the Gila River Indian Community and issued a formal apology for the U.S. policy that forced Native American children into boarding schools.

Boarding schools existed for 150 years in this country. Unspeakable tragedies happened to these children, in over 400 schools. “Kill the Indian and Save the Man” was official U.S. policy. Stealing children from their homes, erasing their culture. Abusing them. Killing them. In the name of God and country.

I remember one of the adult survivors of a boarding school who for a while attended the congregation I served as a priest. She looked at me once and said “Have you heard of the boarding schools? I was in one . . .” and she looked away, and began to cry. I will never forget that moment, and the things she told me in our times together. The tears come now just writing about it, and I wonder where she is now.

Once when a group of our congregation went to Northern Minnesota to hang out with some tribal elders to hear their experiences around the pipeline resistance, on the way back to the cities we stopped at the site of an Episcopal-affiliated boarding school. It had been torn down, there was just a lawn left, there on the edge of this small town. There were trees. Birds singing. Looked so ordinary. Like a park. We sat, put our hands on the ground. Sang a song, then remained in silence. Lament. Repent.

In the 1920s the Institute for Government Research (later renamed the Brookings Institution) commissioned a report funded by the Rockefeller Institute (to avoid bias), to investigate the schools. The report was called the Meriam Report and it condemned the conditions of the schools. In 1934 the Indian Reorganization Act reversed the policy of trying to eradicate Tribal cultures through taking children away from their families and instead teach Indian history and culture in federal schools. (and if you think I just knew these things off the top of my head, I didn’t. Thanks to Heather Cox Richardson’s substack, read about it here). Decades of studies and reports, each condemning the deplorable conditions, some trying to reform a rotten system. In 1969 the last boarding school closed. Before this election there was some hope for a Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding Schools, now that is doubtful.

In 2022 the Pope went to Canada and said he was sorry for the boarding schools. Begged forgiveness.

In June the Conference of Roman Catholic Bishops issued a formal apology. It was not well received, because it also went to lengths to stress the “good that was done”.

And this October President Biden issued a formal apology.

It’s not enough. The people want their land back. They want the records, they want the bodies, they want their tribal artifacts back from the Vatican, they want the truth. From the country, from the church. Apologies are not enough. But it’s something. Got to keep pushing for more.

It’s just making me think how long things take. I’m thinking of the years of tribes suffering, speaking, trying to be heard. Still are.

I’m thinking about those government workers that made that 1920s report. They are all dead now. They didn’t live to see the schools shuttered, or the presidential apology, or the pope begging forgiveness. Those who passed the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act, they are dead now. It wasn’t until this fall, and likely because of Secretary Haaland, that some good news has happened. And because of the people in Congress this last session passing the $32 billion Infrastructure Law, Tribal communities now have (or will have when our stupidly inefficient system will get around to it), roads and bridges and clean water and high speed internet that didn’t have it before.

I want a time machine to go back and thank those report writers, those government workers, those foundation funders, those journalists, who did the right thing and who were likely demoralized that they didn’t live to see the schools close. I want to encourage them. I want to say that there others of us who picked up their efforts. They had descendants who followed their lead. I want to tell them to keep their chins up.

It makes me think that long slogs of efforts are worth it even if we don’t see the results in our lifetime. That doing the right thing – even if it just reporting into what feels like a void – is still the right thing. That it’s sometimes about generations to come. Planting trees the fruit of which we will never see.

But it would be nice to see some change, wouldn’t it? Still, we’re grown ups. Suck it up cupcake. This work isn’t always – often? – ever? - about me or you feeling good. And anyway, isn’t delayed gratification is supposed to be a sign of our maturity? I’m doubtful that for the next four years we will see much change for the good, we will be lucky if we can simply stop the worst. But it will matter a great deal that we still not give up doing good. That we not give up naming what’s right. Putting it out there. I want to give that message to all the government workers now, wondering if they should stick it out or cash it in for private sector work. Please stick it out. What you do for the good of the whole matters.

And it matters that we reexamine our inheritance. That we wonder what suitcases of stuff have been passed down to us with all their complex meaning, and figure out what to do with them. And maybe it leads to some version of picking up the phone and making an awkward phone call across distance and culture. And driving across the country to stay with strangers whose ancestors caused your culture’s near destruction and yet have invited you to sleep in their guest room in order to begin a conversation about a complicated shared inheritance. Because the world needs healing. And we can be better. Our generation can do better.

In Lakota tradition, Chief Spotted Tail was given that headdress because of his accomplishments of leadership, valor, bravery, and service to the community. That’s what the eagle feathers symbolize. And he gave it as a gift to Major Cicero Newell.

That image, of these families at the kitchen table, coffee cups in hand, that headdress lying in the open suitcase between their great great grandsons, well, that image is helping me these days.

credit to Julia Jacobs of the NYT for her reporting

And This is Helping

This guy is mesmerizing. His name is Vladimir SMOKE Pomishekov. I have no idea where in the world he is. Watch him dancing to a Sting song here. So calming. He moves like water. I breathe deeper when I watch him dance, and boy do I need to remember to breathe more deeply. Here he is to something classical. And here’s his whole youtube channel with all his stuff.

And This is Helping

It’s the first week of Advent, and here’s Kate Bowler’s Advent devotional. She’s great. It’s free. Click here. I’ll be doing it. I need structure in my life.

And This is Helping

I’ve decided to give money away and talk about it. That’s the new thing, the talking about it. I’ve decided to give bits of money to places that I think are doing good in the world, and telling you about them, in case you want to give money to places that you think are doing good in the world and are looking for ideas.

The next four years especially are going to be rough on al the non-profits out there, and even a little bit goes a long way to bolstering the spirits of those doing hard work. I know this for sure from my time as a priest of a small parish, even a pledge card with $5 on it was a big shot in the arm, a high five, I don’t know why I’m suddenly talking about appendages but you get the point.

So this week I’ll tell you that I made a donation to Ikar, the Jewish community in Los Angeles. I’ve listened to their sermons and education pieces and forums for a year and good grief they’ve had a rough time of it since October 7 especially and are in for still more. Their voices have really helped me. Here’s their donation page.

And You Are Helping Too

Thank you everyone who has subscribed to this. It’s been more than I ever expected or intended. I guess everyone is looking around for things that are helping these days, if this is a place that works for you, I’m grateful.