You can feel it without seeing it.  The blank stare—over the phone.  This was one of them.  I’d mentioned the Doctrine of Discovery with that tone of “of course you—as a leader within the Church—know something about this.”  I didn’t pick up on it at first and continued by saying the annual Winter Talk emphasizes accountability to the Indigenous voice.  Quiet.  Perhaps, I’d said too much too soon?  I let the silence linger.  There is little reason to move ahead until we are both ready.  Their next words will indicate “tell me more!” or lateral to the comfortable.  They lateraled to the comfortable and we lost ground by a yard or two.  I remember thinking, this conversation is going to take years.

What I find sad is the Doctrine of Discovery has hidden our natural identity, replaced it with labels suited to fit systems that value profit, power, and prestige, AND have us believe these values are values we should honor and desire.  Since 2014 the Center for Indigenous Ministries annual Winter Talk has allowed conversation that questions and counters these values by unveiling damaging issues such as shrouding Two-Spirits, burying landscape language, children hiding in the closet, compartmentalization of creation—human, plant, animal, wind, water, and dirt, lost identity, and boarding/residential school trauma.  Winter Talks have helped us understand why Church, Nation, and Business developed and maintained a Doctrine of Discovery (Doctrine) that inherently enhances their profit, power, and prestige.  Which is why it is sorrowful to learn leadership is not aware of the Doctrine nor grasp their complicity in supporting structures bent on having us forget the natural identity of our birth.

Jim Harrison tells a story of a Chippewa friend who became “somewhat disturbed…when it occurred to him that people did not know that every single tree was different from every other tree.”  The statement challenges (Doctrine) human-centered systemic-social-pastor(al) justice work.  Certainly, those of us who are capable of putting our shoulder against the institutional door and busting it down to bring about greater justice for our human siblings should do so!  However, humanity will never experience the justice we desire until the fullness of creation experiences righteousness.  We, from the door buster to the theologian, the elementary school teacher to the accountant, the biologist to the social worker, the scientist to the police officer, need to recognize we’ve been taught to think there is creational difference where there is none and believe there is sameness where there is uniqueness.  We-should-be-disturbed.

Whether we sit down on the lawn or hike the Saskatchewan prairie we need to experience each blade of grass as exceptional and matchless life.  We must begin valuing the process of becoming indigenous and regaining our natural identity.  To do so is dig out of the genocidal pit of the Doctrine of Discovery and stand on the dirt path of life.  To recover natural memory is to grasp the landscape is not only sensitive to our loss, but is actively seeking relationship and vivaciously loving us.  To have our interior present with the creational is to recognize our ancestors in the windblown dust and the ancients along the treelined ridge.  To open our soul to the drifting clouds is to welcome the descendants.  If we expect, if we watch, if we engage the indigenous, we will find what is truly comfortable—our divine sibling.