Syncretism, Paganism = Native American Spirituality - Yes or No?

[Laudate_Dominum]

Trickster the Native American people today are quite different to what they were centuries ago. You’ve repeatedly mentioned examples in Church histories about missionary work amongst the native peoples to aid towards bringing the Gospel to them.

However, that was then, this is now. The Native American people have been exposed to the Gospel for centuries, they have been incorporated into the Latin liturgical traditions. Be honest… out of the entire population of Native American Catholics, how many are going to find it easier to understand the Gospel and the Church through the lens of a spiritual tradition that is its self disconnected from them by several generations and is just about dead except for the odd preserve at the occasional festival organised by some culture interest group or another? Why would someone, who has grown up in a Latin Catholic environment and has had that tradition passed down to them from generation to generation (and is a truly living heritage) find it easier to relate to He Who Runs with Four Wolves at Night under the Light Fog than, say, Saint John of the Cross?

You appear to be far too obsessed with race and culture. It appears that you yourself have a hard time relating to the Church and the Gospel. However I believe you are looking for a solution in the wrong place.

If you desire to preserve your culture, fair enough. I don’t actually care if you want to learn the old languages, folk stories and music. I’m of Irish blood, I can understand that. But to not impose it on the Church.

 

[Julia_Mae]

Do not mix non-Christian spiritual traditions with Catholic traditions. Do not try to make Catholicism fit to your idea of spirituality…

Here’s an excerpt from a famous poem:

Praise be to thee, my Lord, with all thy creatures,
Especially to my worshipful brother sun,
The which lights up the day, and through him dost thou brightness give;
And beautiful is he and radiant with splendor great;
Of thee, most High, signification gives.

Praised be my Lord, for sister moon and for the stars,
In heaven thou hast formed them clear and precious and fair.
Praised be my Lord for brother wind
And for the air and clouds and fair and every kind of weather,
By the which thou givest to thy creatures nourishment.

Praised be my Lord for sister water,
The which is greatly helpful and humble and precious and pure.

Praised be my Lord for brother fire,
By the which thou lightest up the dark.
And fair is he and gay and mighty and strong.

Praised be my Lord for our sister, mother earth,
The which sustains and keeps us
And brings forth diverse fruits with grass and flowers bright.

Praised be my Lord for those who for thy love forgive
And weakness bear and tribulation.
Blessed those who shall in peace endure,
For by thee, most High, shall they be crowned.

Praised be my Lord for our sister, the bodily death,
From the which no living man can flee.

I think we also want to be careful we don’t shut the door on our own history of spiritual development and thought. Our modern perspective is so limited in time and culture, if Saint Francis wrote these lines today someone might think he was “new age.”

I think what OP is really exploring involves the recognition that God has always loved and called and interacted with all His Creation, with all humans through all times. I remember how similar to basic Christian cosmology the Ogallala religion is, with conceptions of afterlife that include three destinations, including a “hell” and “heaven” and “purgatory.” I know there are parts of the Bhagavad Gita that could be quoted as coming from Christian Scripture and no one but a scholar would think they hadn’t.

Western Catholicism is jam-packed with what we absorbed of the pagan culture we were in when Constantine made Christianity the state religion. I see no reason to become frozen in time all of a sudden. Whether you incense with sweetgrass and sage or frankensense doesn’t change what is happening.

 

[Pfaffenhoffen]

Many (I would guess most, at least on the East Coast) native North American Indians are of “mixed blood” as well. And many of us “white Americans” and “African-Americans” have or may have some small amount of pre-Columbian ancestry as well. In my case there’s a family legend of that which we have not been able to confirm or disprove.

What’s important is that many American Indians have retained their distinct cultural and national (in the old sense of the word) identities to one degree or other. While there might have been a kind of convenience for our continent had the older native cultures and the new colonial ones simply merged into something new and distinct (as was the case to a larger degree in Mexico), that hasn’t happened very much and shouldn’t be forced to happen.

The result is that we have several million native people whose cultural background is substantially different than that of the majority population of their countries. The Church needs to respond pastorally to this.

On the one hand, pre/non-Christian traditions not compatible with Christianity must be abandoned, as has been the case with every people when they are evangelized. This includes not just individual traditions but also generally the culture’s whole paradigm through which they view the world. On the other hand, some customs can be “baptized” safely, easing their path and retaining valued elements of their past culture. To use a timely European example, most of us I think are glad that many traditions regarding holly and even mistletoe were retained from Europe’s pagan past, though some specific practices connected to them were rightly suppressed.

Also remember that many of these native peoples have been Christian for several centuries. In our fast-paced modern world, that could place them more along the lines of Europe in the 14th century than the 4th. That is, when a culture is first evangelized the primary attitude towards their former religion must necessarily be that of rejection, to avoid incompatible superstitions from being retained in their Christian lives. But once enough time has passed a Christian people can look back on the classic cultures of their ancestors with more fondness and admiration, precisely because of the distance from that time and the lack of danger of descending back into paganism.

These questions of what traditions can be retained or what stage of their relationship with their pre-Christian past a given cultural group is in are best answered by the missionaries/clergy who work with them and faithful, orthodox, well-educated Catholics among their ranks. For those of us with very limited knowledge of these cultures it can be much more difficult to tell, and with this kind of thing I would rather err on the side of liberality than cultural imperialism.

What I wanted to emphasize is that the Protestant British praticed always a system of apartheid and suppression a d ellimination of natives as catholic spanish, portuguese and belgian colonizers mixed.

I think it is too late to ctach back what was killed: the Indian culture. What remains seems to me more folklore for tourists.

 

[Pfaffenhoffen]

Why would you say that…cannot “world view” be reconstructed and reinvented…traditions does not drop out of the sky…

Bruce

I repeat and update what i said earlier in the post:

"What I wanted to emphasize is that the Protestant British praticed always a system of apartheid and suppression a d ellimination of natives as catholic spanish, portuguese and belgian colonizers mixed.

I think it is too late to catch back what was killed: the Indian culture. What remains seems to me more folklore for tourists."

An example?

The Portuguese Afonso de Albuquerque (1500 dC …) motivated the nobles who arrived in India to marry Indian Ladies. That was the first "globalization.

I am not seeing the Founding Fathers doing that. The Indian Culture is kept apart not out of respect but out of “not wanting to have anything to do with them” atitude. This British atitude was clear in the States, in South Africa, in Australia.

In India, obvioulsy could not win as they were overwhelmed by numbers. But where it won, the consequences were not nice to sight.

 

[Aelred_Minor]

I repeat and update what i said earlier in the post:

"What I wanted to emphasize is that the Protestant British praticed always a system of apartheid and suppression a d ellimination of natives as catholic spanish, portuguese and belgian colonizers mixed.

I think it is too late to catch back what was killed: the Indian culture. What remains seems to me more folklore for tourists."

An example?

The Portuguese Afonso de Albuquerque (1500 dC …) motivated the nobles who arrived in India to marry Indian Ladies. That was the first "globalization.

I am not seeing the Founding Fathers doing that. The Indian Culture is kept apart not out of respect but out of “not wanting to have anything to do with them” atitude. This British atitude was clear in the States, in South Africa, in Australia.

In India, obvioulsy could not win as they were overwhelmed by numbers. But where it won, the consequences were not nice to sight.

Tell one of them their culture is folklore for tourists and see what they think.

I can see where your idea of history is coming from, but I think the reality is more complicated. There is the relative numbers of colonists, immigrants, and imported slaves to American Indians who survived the plagues, for example. That’s probably the largest part of the difference I would guess. Also the Spanish, Portuguese, and even the French were often not very saintly in their treatment of the natives they found. You won’t find many of their descendents in the Caribbean, for example, largely due to their being killed or enslaved and worked to death, (if they didn’t die of disease). The English didn’t do a great deal of that kind of enslavement in the New World, if only because they were late entering the game and the African Slave Trade was already in full swing.

Also in Canada, much more recently, there was were the boarding schools that forced children away from their parents in an attempt to essentially forcibly assimilate them into mainstream Canadian society. On the one hand, that’s contradicts your idea of English segregation vs. Catholic integration. On the other hand, Catholic schools played a large part in the process, which is something our Church is still suffering the consequences of.

With regard to Australia, I thought there were similar forced assimilation efforts. In South Africa, I thought the main force behind apartheid was the Afrikaners (also mostly Protestant, I grant), and the treatment of blacks was often shocking to people from England.

I’m not defending anyone here by any means. I’m just pointing out that the actual history of these issues is a great deal more complicated than what you are saying.

 

[TrueLight]

I think what OP is really exploring involves the recognition that God has always loved and called and interacted with all His Creation, with all humans through all times. I remember how similar to basic Christian cosmology the Ogallala religion is, with conceptions of afterlife that include three destinations, including a “hell” and “heaven” and “purgatory.” I know there are parts of the Bhagavad Gita that could be quoted as coming from Christian Scripture and no one but a scholar would think they hadn’t.

I’m sorry Julia Mae, but it doesn’t matter to me if parts of the Bhagavad Vita have beliefs that are similar to Catholicism. We have the word of life. Neither do I care about “Ogallala” except to pray for God to draw those souls who practice that religion to him.

In seeking to find truth in all religions, the truth of the Gospel ends up getting lost. We become just another religion. I will never agree with that.

As an aside, there are like 5 threads in the TC forum on Native American spirituality.

 

[Julia_Mae]

I’m sorry Julia Mae, but it doesn’t matter to me if parts of the Bhagavad Vita have beliefs that are similar to Catholicism.

And there’s no reason it should matter to you at all. Part of my background is the fascination with all cultures and cultural development. When I converted, it was just natural to include spiritual development. But this isn’t interesting to everyone.

I think OP’s issue is that things and practices are not inherently pagan. That is, if we use drums for music, it doesn’t make the Mass less Catholic. At least, that’s what I understood to be his point. I just agree with him and beyond that, I have nothing to offer, really.

Hope y’all are having a lovely Advent.

 

[TrueLight]

And there’s no reason it should matter to you at all. Part of my background is the fascination with all cultures and cultural development. When I converted, it was just natural to include spiritual development. But this isn’t interesting to everyone.

I think OP’s issue is that things and practices are not inherently pagan. That is, if we use drums for music, it doesn’t make the Mass less Catholic. At least, that’s what I understood to be his point. I just agree with him and beyond that, I have nothing to offer, really.

Hope y’all are having a lovely Advent.

Oh don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I am not interested in cultures and belief systems. I love Greek and Roman Mythology and I love to read about the old Egyptian gods and contrary to the way I have responded in this thread, I also love Native American spirituality in its context.

Back in the days, I had Navajo chant CD’s blasting, which I’m sure my neighbors loved.

It’s one thing to study these as fascinating lore, but it’s another to mix it up with our Christian beliefs. I just think we need to be careful.

Anyway, I am having a GREAT Advent! Hope you are too.

 

[Pfaffenhoffen]

Tell one of them their culture is folklore for tourists and see what they think.

I can see where your idea of history is coming from, but I think the reality is more complicated. There is the relative numbers of colonists, immigrants, and imported slaves to American Indians who survived the plagues, for example. That’s probably the largest part of the difference I would guess. Also the Spanish, Portuguese, and even the French were often not very saintly in their treatment of the natives they found. You won’t find many of their descendents in the Caribbean, for example, largely due to their being killed or enslaved and worked to death, (if they didn’t die of disease). The English didn’t do a great deal of that kind of enslavement in the New World, if only because they were late entering the game and the African Slave Trade was already in full swing.

Also in Canada, much more recently, there was were the boarding schools that forced children away from their parents in an attempt to essentially forcibly assimilate them into mainstream Canadian society. On the one hand, that’s contradicts your idea of English segregation vs. Catholic integration. On the other hand, Catholic schools played a large part in the process, which is something our Church is still suffering the consequences of.

With regard to Australia, I thought there were similar forced assimilation efforts. In South Africa, I thought the main force behind apartheid was the Afrikaners (also mostly Protestant, I grant), and the treatment of blacks was often shocking to people from England.

I’m not defending anyone here by any means. I’m just pointing out that the actual history of these issues is a great deal more complicated than what you are saying.

It is very brave of you to defend the British and the Americans, but to no avail. The British and Americans were the worst.

Of course, you do not know. Do you know that up to recently USA did not belong to UNESCO as does not belong to the International Court of hague?

There is a UNESCO Program called TST-Trnasatlantic Slave Trade that American Students do not study as European Students do. So, Your ignorance and the ignorance of the American People.

I still remember hearing say of the Banks, Buses, garden banks, toilets, medicines for whites and for blacks in the USA, which me, as a child found nauseating.

You entered the Slave Trade late but with a such a force that you were the worst of all. If I ask you what the TST is you do not know. So, you speak out of ignorance.

South Africa and Australia where I have been, you do not know anything about it. The boers were defeated in the war, how come you invent that it was their fault?

Sorry, you not only know nothing about it but also distort facts.

 

[Laudate_Dominum]

You entered the Slave Trade late but with a such a force that you were the worst of all.

The Arabic people would like to disagree with you there. And on another note, you’re speaking as if the Europeans and Euro-Americans of today are personally responsible for what our ancestors did.

 

[Aelred_Minor]

It is very brave of you to defend the British and the Americans, but to no avail. The British and Americans were the worst.

Of course, you do not know. Do you know that up to recently USA did not belong to UNESCO as does not belong to the International Court of hague?

There is a UNESCO Program called TST-Trnasatlantic Slave Trade that American Students do not study as European Students do. So, Your ignorance and the ignorance of the American People.

I still remember hearing say of the Banks, Buses, garden banks, toilets, medicines for whites and for blacks in the USA, which me, as a child found nauseating.

You entered the Slave Trade late but with a such a force that you were the worst of all. If I ask you what the TST is you do not know. So, you speak out of ignorance.

South Africa and Australia where I have been, you do not know anything about it. The boers were defeated in the war, how come you invent that it was their fault?

Sorry, you not only know nothing about it but also distort facts.

Wow. I specifically said I wasn’t defending anyone, just pointing out how the history is complicated. Also the idea that the Afrikaners were not the biggest driving force behind apartheid is just absurd. Nothing against Afrikaners as such of course. I admit to great ignorance concerning Australia, despite also having been there.

Two could play at this game, if you told us what country you are from (I thought it was Germany). Of course I won’t do that. Honestly, I think you need to take some time off from this thread. I mean that in charity.

 

[Pfaffenhoffen]

The Arabic people would like to disagree with you there. And on another note, you’re speaking as if the Europeans and Euro-Americans of today are personally responsible for what our ancestors did.

Arabic? What are they doing here? Arabic is in the East Coast and TST was in the west coast.
Please, do not speak about Hitler to present day germans for they have nothing to do with it. Or Gulags to Russian and Chinese.
Do not speak to going to the moon to present day Americans for they have nothing to do with it and should not share the glory of the past astronauts.
Do not talk about the invasion of Normandy and do not teach children about it for they have nothing to do with it.
An so on…
Look…I know that Americans like to expose their glories but just shut their windows when talked about their past dark spots: Indian Killings, Slavery…
But that is your problem…

 

[Pfaffenhoffen]

Wow. I specifically said I wasn’t defending anyone, just pointing out how the history is complicated. Also the idea that the Afrikaners were not the biggest driving force behind apartheid is just absurd. Nothing against Afrikaners as such of course. I admit to great ignorance concerning Australia, despite also having been there.

Two could play at this game, if you told us what country you are from (I thought it was Germany). Of course I won’t do that. Honestly, I think you need to take some time off from this thread. I mean that in charity.

You are just smiling at the idea of me being from Germany.
What does it matter where I am from?
Go ahead: presently I live in Germany? Do you want to talk about Hitler’ Go ahead. Let’s talk. But read Anah Arandt, the Jewish Philosopher, first, so that we may progress in discussion.
Come on, American RAcissm came fro Afrikaners? And Australian one?. Come on, you must be joking. Wherever the British, they wanted to keep themelves apart, taking the best lands and relegating the indigenous to apartheid.
That is why you do not find mixed people in Protestant America and the whole Catholic Latin America is mixed.
I know that you do not accept that even there were slaves in America (maybe they were slaves of the Afrikaners). No, no and no, there were no slaves in America.
I know that you do not accept that before the arrival of the whites, North America belonged to the Indians and now they are in reservations (for me reservations are for cattle!). No. The USA Constitution was written by Indians and it is the whites who are in reservations !!!

What can I do ???

 

[Laudate_Dominum]

Arabic? What are they doing here? Arabic is in the East Coast and TST was in the west coast.

You didn’t specify the west African slave trade. Over all the Arabic slave trade eclipses anything the Europeans did.

Please, do not speak about Hitler to present day germans for they have nothing to do with it. Or Gulags to Russian and Chinese.
Do not speak to going to the moon to present day Americans for they have nothing to do with it and should not share the glory of the past astronauts.
Do not talk about the invasion of Normandy and do not teach children about it for they have nothing to do with it.
An so on…

I’m not saying that fair and frank discussions should not be had. I’m simply saying that you cannot blame present day Germans for the Third Reich government. Nor can you blame so-and-so an American for the fact that his great-great-grandfather owned a plantation with slaves.

But that is your problem…

I’m not an American.

 

[trickster]

Trickster the Native American people today are quite different to what they were centuries ago. You’ve repeatedly mentioned examples in Church histories about missionary work amongst the native peoples to aid towards bringing the Gospel to them.

However, that was then, this is now. The Native American people have been exposed to the Gospel for centuries, they have been incorporated into the Latin liturgical traditions. Be honest… out of the entire population of Native American Catholics, how many are going to find it easier to understand the Gospel and the Church through the lens of a spiritual tradition that is its self disconnected from them by several generations and is just about dead except for the odd preserve at the occasional festival organised by some culture interest group or another? Why would someone, who has grown up in a Latin Catholic environment and has had that tradition passed down to them from generation to generation (and is a truly living heritage) find it easier to relate to He Who Runs with Four Wolves at Night under the Light Fog than, say, Saint John of the Cross?

You appear to be far too obsessed with race and culture. It appears that you yourself have a hard time relating to the Church and the Gospel. However I believe you are looking for a solution in the wrong place.

If you desire to preserve your culture, fair enough. I don’t actually care if you want to learn the old languages, folk stories and music. I’m of Irish blood, I can understand that. But to not impose it on the Church.

You still haven’t described what you think the word “pagan” means. All cultures, religions and traditions are evolutionary in nature and are limited to a remembered history which may be oral or written. To say that the Catholic Church herself has not changed as she grew under progressive revelation is to minimize the church to a structure of bureaucracy and dogma rather than an organic being (the bride of Christ) responsive to the whispering and nudging of the Holy Spirit, that is why we have bishops and popes and all that stuff,… to be sensitive to and always listen for the voice of the spirit in all their decisions.

What I am trying to say in terms of our peoples’ long exposure (or exploitation) of Christianity is that the teachings of the chruch and common themes in Native American religions are similar…again…how do you understand inculturation…is it imposition on the chruch to develop a stronger Aboriginal theological basis to describe, interact, engage and assist in the aboriginal expereince iwthin the church and the church’s experience as she participates in conversation with Native communities?

Cheerz in any case

Bruce

 

[trickster]

I repeat and update what i said earlier in the post:

"What I wanted to emphasize is that the Protestant British praticed always a system of apartheid and suppression a d ellimination of natives as catholic spanish, portuguese and belgian colonizers mixed.

I think it is too late to catch back what was killed: the Indian culture. What remains seems to me more folklore for tourists."

An example?

The Portuguese Afonso de Albuquerque (1500 dC …) motivated the nobles who arrived in India to marry Indian Ladies. That was the first "globalization.

I am not seeing the Founding Fathers doing that. The Indian Culture is kept apart not out of respect but out of “not wanting to have anything to do with them” atitude. This British atitude was clear in the States, in South Africa, in Australia.

In India, obvioulsy could not win as they were overwhelmed by numbers. But where it won, the consequences were not nice to sight.

Yes, that may be true in countries like South America, but I am talking about Canada mainly and as you know, “colonization” is only about 150 years old on Canada’s west coast and about 400 in the East. The Jesuits wrote quite a bit about the aboriginals they found and what they perceived as a belief. The Jesuit Relations were the “fundraising appeals of the day” back to Rome and they must be understood in relation to the French Jesuit and Gallic thinking of the day in Quebec. In the rest of Canada, Catholicism is not that old…150-200 years old…and most of the work amongst our peoples were done by the Oblates of Mary Immaclate…they made many uses of aboriginal tools to explain gospel concepts and including the creation of a written form of the languages…so I think that while the destruction of cultures in the south have been for 500+ years now with a different colonizer mindset then it is not reasonable to assume that our people have had our religion killed…

I am 54 as an example. My great grandmother was a medicine women. My grandmother was the first generation of our family to become Catholics in 1905 and then my mother…I am the third generation… Also my great grandmother by-passed my grandmother and taught my mother about what she knew…so this case - which I have just document for you - would argue that the traditional knowledge has survived at least until 1975 with the death of my mom…BUT … in the 70’s there was a great renewal of interest in all things aboriginal and how that worked within the church itself…

So, to argue that we - as a people - are simply constructing a lost past, does not always ring true. There is much more I can share on this…but I am limited in time by a library computer…but I thank you for your comments on other areas of colonialization…that would make sense…but we need to be sensitive of the particular histories of each group that we are talking about…there is nothing about me that is for the tourists…everything I say about Aboriginal people comes from being aboriginal and an aboriginal heart…so I say what I have to say … and enjoy the dynamics of these discussions…take care.

Bruce Ferguson
Trickster

 

[trickster]

Tell one of them their culture is folklore for tourists and see what they think.

I can see where your idea of history is coming from, but I think the reality is more complicated. There is the relative numbers of colonists, immigrants, and imported slaves to American Indians who survived the plagues, for example. That’s probably the largest part of the difference I would guess. Also the Spanish, Portuguese, and even the French were often not very saintly in their treatment of the natives they found. You won’t find many of their descendents in the Caribbean, for example, largely due to their being killed or enslaved and worked to death, (if they didn’t die of disease). The English didn’t do a great deal of that kind of enslavement in the New World, if only because they were late entering the game and the African Slave Trade was already in full swing.

Also in Canada, much more recently, there was were the boarding schools that forced children away from their parents in an attempt to essentially forcibly assimilate them into mainstream Canadian society. On the one hand, that’s contradicts your idea of English segregation vs. Catholic integration. On the other hand, Catholic schools played a large part in the process, which is something our Church is still suffering the consequences of.

With regard to Australia, I thought there were similar forced assimilation efforts. In South Africa, I thought the main force behind apartheid was the Afrikaners (also mostly Protestant, I grant), and the treatment of blacks was often shocking to people from England.

I’m not defending anyone here by any means. I’m just pointing out that the actual history of these issues is a great deal more complicated than what you are saying.

DITTO thank you.

Bruce Ferguson
Trickster

 

[trickster]

I’m sorry Julia Mae, but it doesn’t matter to me if parts of the Bhagavad Vita have beliefs that are similar to Catholicism. We have the word of life. Neither do I care about “Ogallala” except to pray for God to draw those souls who practice that religion to him.

In seeking to find truth in all religions, the truth of the Gospel ends up getting lost. We become just another religion. I will never agree with that.

As an aside, there are like 5 threads in the TC forum on Native American spirituality.

True Light…you are defending statements that are not being made. You are amongst Catholics here and no one is saying anything to minimize the fact that we - as Catholics - believe that God came to earth in the form of Jesus to teach us, to die for us and to help us to get to heaven. I am not sure where you are getting those messages as they are pretty evident by your arguments.

I am sorry that you won’t open your eyes and hearts to the great wisdom theology and spirituality that are contained in the world’s religions and the Oglala Sioux belief system. You are missing a great opportunity to grow in your own faith by looking at church teaching (which is universal) in ways meaningful for you. You may not have to look outside your own understanding of Catholicism, but many other people within our faith community are inspired by how the wisdom of God’s spirit and humanity can create understanding.

The gospels are not getting lost unless people are losing them…again that is not what I am talking about…the gospels can in fact be enhanced and understood better with a more global and indepth understanding. We will not become another religions because that would be syncretic and that would be wrong. Again, the philosophy, models, relationships found in other cultural belief systems can assist us in coming to a deeper understanding of catholicsm.

Your right…that this conversation is moving away from the “traditional” understanding of Traditional Catholics but to say that Traditional Catholics are not caring of global evangelization woul be a disservice to the beauty of the pre-Vatican II catholicism that has everyone’s attention these days. Again, I have found that sometimes tradtitional catholicism has been very innovative in global evangelizaiton and part of those tools used by the TC church was borrowing symbolisms and stories…just like St. Paul did when speaking of the God of the Unknown to the Hellenistic community (or was it in Greece)…anyways point made…

Cheerz.

Bruce FErguson
Trickster

 

[trickster]

Oh don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I am not interested in cultures and belief systems. I love Greek and Roman Mythology and I love to read about the old Egyptian gods and contrary to the way I have responded in this thread, I also love Native American spirituality in its context.

Back in the days, I had Navajo chant CD’s blasting, which I’m sure my neighbors loved.

It’s one thing to study these as fascinating lore, but it’s another to mix it up with our Christian beliefs. I just think we need to be careful.

Anyway, I am having a GREAT Advent! Hope you are too.

OK True Light…well said and I could not agree with you more…that is all I am saying too…however…as an Aboriginal person who’s great grandmother understood the medicial use of plants…I have a deep sense that there is more to my existence than simply being a Catholic or Aboriginal…why has the world forced this choice on me under the guise of who has the truth and who doesn’t…could in fact both of my “sides” contain some form of the truth as witnessed to and understood by my own spirit and conscience? I think so…I am also saying that there are incompatabilities and that is ok too…we don’t have to loose the baby to empty the bathwater (or however that saying goes)…Catholicism can be incompatible for indigenous ceremonies as an examples…those Navajo elders will tell you that…and the conservative Catholics on the forums have been very vocal about how my traditions are incompatilbe with Catholicism…

Yet I am organically one person…and am on a journey to reconcile those two realities within me…is that not the true nature of conversion…or is conversion simply a matter of saying what we need to say to be within the field as expressed by our Creed or to be accepted as catholics iwthin a communion…or is it more than that… is it not an invitation to life…does life just drop on your head without any struggle, “a ha” moments (epiphanies, depressions), etc. no…life is experienced and I believe that is what is happenign here … a simple exercises of honouring all the Creator gave me at birth - both my aboriginal race (blood if you want) and all that comes with that and the decision of my Aboriginal community to bring me into the catholic fold as an infant at baptism…so I hope that you understand that…I am not asking you to “not be careful”…I am just asking for a greater openess to the work Aboriginal Catholics have to do to fully participate in our church too.

Did you know that cedar boughs - which we use as advent wreaths in Canada - are also used by the Coast Salish and many other coastal groups as symbols of cleansing…and the smoke coming from the cedar on the west coast is about cleansing the area of bad energies, bad spirits (and there are many “manitous” including both a Kitche (Great) and a “Nitche” (Bad) ultimate spirit)…just some facts for consideration…

Have a blessed Christmas too…and don’t behave yourself too well at New Years

Bruce Ferguson
Trickster

 

[Aelred_Minor]

You are just smiling at the idea of me being from Germany.
What does it matter where I am from?
Go ahead: presently I live in Germany? Do you want to talk about Hitler’ Go ahead. Let’s talk. But read Anah Arandt, the Jewish Philosopher, first, so that we may progress in discussion.
Come on, American RAcissm came fro Afrikaners? And Australian one?. Come on, you must be joking. Wherever the British, they wanted to keep themelves apart, taking the best lands and relegating the indigenous to apartheid.
That is why you do not find mixed people in Protestant America and the whole Catholic Latin America is mixed.
I know that you do not accept that even there were slaves in America (maybe they were slaves of the Afrikaners). No, no and no, there were no slaves in America.
I know that you do not accept that before the arrival of the whites, North America belonged to the Indians and now they are in reservations (for me reservations are for cattle!). No. The USA Constitution was written by Indians and it is the whites who are in reservations !!!

What can I do ???

I can’t follow some of this, and I won’t respond to most of it, except to say I think you need to do some more reading if you really think Apartheid was a particularly English thing or that the Spanish were just jumping at the chance to marry people of other races and form new nationalities, or that we Americans keep Indians in zoo-like reservations for tourists to take pictures of. Maybe also reread what I have actually written, which contains nothing of what you here have falsely accused me of believing.

Also I have no desire to impute modern Germans with the crimes of the Nazis, not even descendents of Nazi supporters, much less those not descended from them (those former Nazis or Nazi supporters still living do of course have that connection- same with former Klansmen in the US and whatnot). As I said, two could play this game, but I have no desire to do so.

I don’t know what your beef is with British and Americans, but I think it is affecting your judgment.