I have a couple of books of daily readings I occasionally look at. I like the title “The Native American Path to Leading a Spiritual Life Every Day,” which Quakers also seek to do.
I’ve recently been thinking about spirituality in terms of sharing with others. I’ve been asked to speak to a group of people who have a long history of social justice work but also a variety of faith backgrounds, if any. My justice experiences have reinforced my belief that such work needs be based on a spiritual foundation.
Far too often I’ve seen or heard about social justice efforts that have actually done significant harm rather than good. A specific example I have been studying lately was the disaster of the Indian Boarding Schools. Quakers and others in those times believed it would be in the best interest of Native peoples to forcibly assimilate their children into White culture. Instead those children and their families suffered greatly, in many ways. A number of the children died from disease or exposure when they ran away from the schools. Native peoples are to this day experiencing significant multigenerational trauma from that. As the song below says, “Oh it’s all in the past you can say, but it’s still going on here today“. More information can be found here: https://www.friendsjournal.org/quaker-indian-boarding-schools/
I don’t believe those good intentions could have come from spiritual guidance. As for speaking to this secular group I guess the best I can do is express my experiences and beliefs about the importance of spiritual guidance for this work.
October 13 A Native to Know
Cree musician Buffy Sainte-Marie was raised by a Micmac couple in Canada. She was world-famous by the 1970s for her singing and songwriting especially protest songs like “Now That the Buffalo’s Gone.”“We may misunderstand, but we do not misexperience.” Vine Deloria Jr., Lakota, Standing Rock Sioux.
365 Days of Walking the Red Road, The Native American Path to Leading a Spiritual Life Every Day, Terri Jean.
October 13
I traveled thousands of miles along our winding trails, the unbroken solitudes of the wild forest, listening to the songs of the woodland birds. –Pokagon, Potawatomi Chief, 1833
A Cherokee Feast of Days, Volume Two, Joyce Sequichie Hifler
Can you remember the times
NOW THAT THE BUFFALO’S GONE
That you have held your head high
and told all your friends of your Indian claim
Proud good lady and proud good man
Some great great grandfather from Indian blood came
and you feel in your heart for these ones
Oh it’s written in books and in song
that we’ve been mistreated and wronged
Well over and over I hear those same words
from you good lady and you good man
Well listen to me if you care where we stand
and you feel you’re a part of these ones
When a war between nations is lost
the loser we know pays the cost
but even when Germany fell to your hands
consider dear lady, consider dear man
you left them their pride and you left them their land
and what have you done to these ones
Has a change come about my dear man
or are you still taking our lands
A treaty forever your senators sign
They do dear lady, they do dear man
and the treaties are broken again and again
and what will you do for these ones
Oh it’s all in the past you can say
but it’s still going on here today
The governments now want the Navaho land
that of the Inuit and the Cheyenne
It’s here and it’s now you can help us dear man
Now that the buffalo’s gone.
Buffy Sainte-Marie – 1964
Quakers, social justice and revolution 
Reblogged this on As' salaam Alaykem 🙂 Rahim and commented:
Great worx, thanx; also: for those who say poverty must be addressed before the climate crisis, not true they should be addressed simultaneously, for poverty is caused by the yoke placed on every human beings neck by the defacto-slavery dictated by the non-renewable energy industrial complexes; as well as their determining all social and societal interlocking and laced system’s are based on their scarcity- as opposed to nature’s abundance, duh. Abolish non-renewable energy use, and relatively free energy will be, then economic defacto-slavery would be easily ended. On this First Anniversary, in memoriam 🙂
A couple of twigs of same poetree 🙂
Khashoggi Didn’t Die In Vain
On this first anniversary of his light being snuffed,
like lady liberty’s torch was scorched, bell cracked,
knell snatched decades ago, whilst his heart worx can
never be, support continuing activism for Khashoggi,
freedoms of press, speech, criticism of the oligarchy.
His meticulous and terrorist assassination
will be an article of RumputiN/vlad-the-impaler’s
impeachment, as our king-kong sized terrible-two
gave permission to Saudi’s MBS to do it, in advance,
they went to Jared’s for the messengering, outrageous.
This war on freedoms, criticism of global oligarchy,
is just the tip of the global united suck of assassin’s
class war against the lower-middle-class to poor,
and just part of the war machine, oiled by the blood of
non: us citizens, rich, caucasians, supposed Christians.
It’s carbon bootprint is the largest, worst,
“…we(e),…” must end ‘endless war’. Yet, it’s
just half of the bi-headed actual religion of most
in the united suck of assassins, the false god, mollock,
extreme violence, especially against kids, and war.
We once knew the seeds shouldn’t be ground up. The other half,
mammon, false-god of extreme wealth, greed, avarice. Those two,
As one, are worshipped, studied behind masks of Hinduism,
Atheism, Christianity, Buddhism, etc., neither are separated
from the State as our Constitution dictates, ergo they rule.
Think people, 400 years of supposed science, a millisecond
evolutionarily, has brought humanity to it’s extinction,
destroying what it took the Cosmos 18 billion years of evolution
to create, an insect damaging so much grain, an instant destroying
so much grace, please, human race be not the Earth’s still birth.
Any scientist who doesn’t do a full public mea culpa before posting,
with each post, to youth, communicating anything to youth on
the climate emergency is just a corporate structure convolutionary
and disciple of the religion of scientism, no more than a marketeer.
Cults aren’t religions, anti-science that destroys all isn’t science.
Yet you, leaving no footprints, that followed none, illimitable potential,
indivisible as life, walking in nature’s balance, giving back to it’s abundance,
can know “the root of all oppression lies in (supposed) science”, Gandhi,
that you, leaving no footprints, no trace, that will echo on in all ways,
always, can be alival instead of survival, yet will you save life, the Earth?
Khashoggi’s Death Be Proud
First anniversary of his light snuffed by impeached
Rump okaying Saudi’s MBS doing it, they went to Jared’s
for the messengering. Let not his voice, like lady liberty’s
torch was scorched, bell cracked, knell snatched decades ago,
be silenced, it evokes freedom, critics oligarchy, forever.
Music in Memoriam: “My video with ARANJUEZ:
Both links should work. This is my YouTube channel on the Canadian site. Enjoy…Zuzanna”
Copy, share as you will. Happy Indigenous People’s Day. Thanx for all you do 🙂 reality
Great worx, thanx; also: for those who say poverty must be addressed before the climate crisis, not true they should be addressed simultaneously, for poverty is caused by the yoke placed on every human beings neck by the defacto-slavery dictated by the non-renewable energy industrial complexes; as well as their determining all social and societal interlocking and laced system’s are based on their scarcity- as opposed to nature’s abundance, duh. Abolish non-renewable energy use, and relatively free energy will be, then economic defacto-slavery would be easily ended. On this First Anniversary, in memoriam 🙂
A couple of twigs of same poetree 🙂
Khashoggi Didn’t Die In Vain
On this first anniversary of his light being snuffed,
like lady liberty’s torch was scorched, bell cracked,
knell snatched decades ago, whilst his heart worx can
never be, support continuing activism for Khashoggi,
freedoms of press, speech, criticism of the oligarchy.
His meticulous and terrorist assassination
will be an article of RumputiN/vlad-the-impaler’s
impeachment, as our king-kong sized terrible-two
gave permission to Saudi’s MBS to do it, in advance,
they went to Jared’s for the messengering, outrageous.
This war on freedoms, criticism of global oligarchy,
is just the tip of the global united suck of assassin’s
class war against the lower-middle-class to poor,
and just part of the war machine, oiled by the blood of
non: us citizens, rich, caucasians, supposed Christians.
It’s carbon bootprint is the largest, worst,
“…we(e),…” must end ‘endless war’. Yet, it’s
just half of the bi-headed actual religion of most
in the united suck of assassins, the false god, mollock,
extreme violence, especially against kids, and war.
We once knew the seeds shouldn’t be ground up. The other half,
mammon, false-god of extreme wealth, greed, avarice. Those two,
As one, are worshipped, studied behind masks of Hinduism,
Atheism, Christianity, Buddhism, etc., neither are separated
from the State as our Constitution dictates, ergo they rule.
Think people, 400 years of supposed science, a millisecond
evolutionarily, has brought humanity to it’s extinction,
destroying what it took the Cosmos 18 billion years of evolution
to create, an insect damaging so much grain, an instant destroying
so much grace, please, human race be not the Earth’s still birth.
Any scientist who doesn’t do a full public mea culpa before posting,
with each post, to youth, communicating anything to youth on
the climate emergency is just a corporate structure convolutionary
and disciple of the religion of scientism, no more than a marketeer.
Cults aren’t religions, anti-science that destroys all isn’t science.
Yet you, leaving no footprints, that followed none, illimitable potential,
indivisible as life, walking in nature’s balance, giving back to it’s abundance,
can know “the root of all oppression lies in (supposed) science”, Gandhi,
that you, leaving no footprints, no trace, that will echo on in all ways,
always, can be alival instead of survival, yet will you save life, the Earth?
Khashoggi’s Death Be Proud
First anniversary of his light snuffed by impeached
Rump okaying Saudi’s MBS doing it, they went to Jared’s
for the messengering. Let not his voice, like lady liberty’s
torch was scorched, bell cracked, knell snatched decades ago,
be silenced, it evokes freedom, critics oligarchy, forever.
Music in Memoriam: “My video with ARANJUEZ:
Both links should work. This is my YouTube channel on the Canadian site. Enjoy…Zuzanna”
Copy, share as you will. Happy Indigenous People’s Day. Thanx for all you do 🙂 reality