Blue Dot Tour, October 24

Tickets available on the Blue Dot Tour Website.

How Will We Walk Together?

This past Saturday, Where Waters Meet was a deep, moving and inspiring time of ceremony, sharing of stories, laughter and tears, feasting and working toward right relations with all creation.  We will be posting more reports about this past weekend's Where Waters Meet in the next short while, including pictures.  

As you know from earlier posts, leadership for the day was provided by powerful voices, including those of Stan McKay, Melody McKellar, Melanie Kampen and Steve Heinrichs.  Red Threads of Peace, a Playback Theatre group, changed the pace for us all, but certainly not the intensity of our engagement with important matters.

One of the items of discussion toward the end of the afternoon was that we wished to deepen the connections made during the day, and to expand our connection with the indigenous community.  

Steve has sent an invitation to take steps in that direction.  Below the image of the poster, you'll find his invitation to all of us.

Friends,

Want to thank you all again for inviting me into the Faith in the City ‘circle’.  I really enjoyed my experience this past weekend, and was profoundly moved on a number of fronts.  Thank you for all the hard work that you put into this.

Very grateful.

If you’re interested, I’d like to invite you to a gathering on November 1^st which is exploring how we can build tangible partnerships/relationships right here in the city and communities. Adrian Jacobs and Michael Champagne are our guest teachers, and it’s all taking place at Circle of Life Thunderbird House. Please see the attached poster...and please join us. We’d be honoured. Feel free to share with your networks.

Take care,

Steve

- submitted by Gareth

Stan, Melanie, Melody and Steve

Stan McKay (Cree)

Stan McKay is a theology graduate from the University of Winnipeg and was ordained on his home reservation in Fisher River in 1971, and served as moderator of the United Church of Canada from 1992-1994. He has energy for building cross cultural relations and addressing historical and present injustice. Dorothy and Stan are retired by Netley Creek.

“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow.”  Matthew 6:28

Melanie Kampen (Settler/Mennonite)

Melanie Kampen recently completed her Master of Theological Studies at Conrad Grebel University College at the University of Waterloo. Her research interests are at the intersection of Christian theology and settler-colonialism in North America. She is also involved in Mennonite Church Manitoba's Partnership Circles with Matheson Island and Pauingassi First Nation and plugs into the local Idle No More movement whenever she can. 

"Let justice roll down like water, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream!" Amos 5:24

Melody McKellar (Mohawk/French)

Melody, who lives east of Beausejour with husband Ernest Bradshaw, is a member of the Spiritual Health Team at Selkirk Mental Health Centre.  She is completing her Masters of Sacred Theology with a major in “Intercultural Ministry”.  Melody and Ernest both own and operate a Bison Ranch in their ‘spare time’ and use no chemicals on the land.  They deliberately leave wetlands in the fields for the wild birds and animals to share and do not allow hunting on the land so the animals have sanctuary to raise their young.

“It will take each and everyone of us to work together from this moment on, regardless of race, creed or culture for the earth to continue to sustain life for generations to come.”

Steve Heinrichs (Settler/Christian)

Steve, on the left

Steve Heinrichs lives in Treaty 1 Territory, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, along with his spouse Ann and their three children, Abby, Aiden and Isabelle.  Steve is the editor of the groundbreaking book "Buffalo Shout, Salmon Cry".  A former reservist with Christian Peacemaker Teams in Palestine, Steve pastored a Mennonite church in northern BC.  Currently Steve is Indigenous relations director for Mennonite Church Canada.  On Sundays, Steve and family walk a few blocks to Hope Mennonite Church – a community of activists, doubters, and Jesus-followers - for worship, Word and nursery chaos.

“The glory of the human has become the desolation of the Earth. The desolation of the Earth is becoming the destiny of the human. It is imperative, therefore, that all human institutions and activities - economic, political, and religious - be judged primarily by the extent to which they inhibit, ignore, or foster a mutually enhancing human-Earth relationship.”   -Thomas Berry (1914-2009) 

WATER - Prayer by Karla W.

Karla, member of the Faith in the City planning group, shared this prayer at the end of August.  It is offered in this blog with her permission.

~Water~         by Karla W

Creator God
Mother and Father of all that is
 
in humbleness and humility for all that is undeserving,
hear our fervent prayer.

We have grown thirsty from crying,
wandering the desert, troubled, delirious...far gone.
We see the water, yet do not drink.

Unclench our sticky, furled fists of greed so we may catch
one lone tear from your heavenly Grace.

Let it wash us clean so that we may, once again, feel the beauty of the earth...like children

eyes cleansed, restoring vision that clearly sees the gift of creation

let it run through our veins, blood of Christ...life giving forgiveness

quenching our insatiable thirst for the riches of the land and sea

give drink to our parched hearts, restoring the connected rhythm with all of creation.

Amen

Faith in the City II Poster

This year's poster is now available.  Thank you, Donna Hainstock, for a very attractive design which so effectively reflects Faith in the City's focus.  The posters are available to anyone who wishes to help publicize our event (church or organization's bulletin boards, for example).  You may, of course, also copy and paste the image (email, facebook, blogs), and share the information with friends, organizations, etc..

To receive a printed poster, please contact Gareth at garneuf@mymts.net.

Faith in the City II - WHERE WATERS MEET

WHERE WATERS MEET

First Peoples and Settlers Exploring our Relationship with Mother Earth 
through Shared Stories and Sacred Acts

UPDATE:  This is updated information.  Note, for example, that Where Waters Meet will not begin on Friday evening, as previously planned, but rather on Saturday morning.  

Oct. 18, 19, 2014
Saturday, 9 - 4:30; Sunday morning, 10:30

Augustine United Church

144 River Avenue (Osborne Village)

Winnipeg, Manitoba

WHERE WATERS MEET

This year, Faith in the City II – Augustine’s annual ecumenical, congregationally-based conversation – explores our relationship with Mother Earth.  First Peoples and Settlers will gather at Augustine United Church and at the Assiniboine River nearby, to engage together in examining questions such as:

• How do we rekindle our spiritual connection to the earth?
• How can settlers and indigenous peoples be allies in actions to defend our earth’s resources?
• How has Christian theology/tradition brought us to where we are (e.g. the ecological crisis, the troubled relationship between first peoples/settlers)?
• How can a decolonized and reimagined Christian theology move us to a new and sacred place?
• How can the settlers among us find the courage to become unsettled?   

Stan McKay (Cree), Melanie Kampen (Settler Mennonite), Melody McKellar (Mohawk/French) and Steve Heinrichs (Settler Christian) will lead this highly experiential and interactive day of ceremony, conversations and sharing-circles. 

On Sunday, the Very Rev. Dr. Stan McKay (former moderator of the United Church of Canada) will join Rev. Bob Gilbert (Augustine United Church) in leading a special Faith in the City worship service at 10:30 a.m..

Registration Cost
The following categories are guidelines.  Registrants may pay as they are able.
$40 (Fully employed); $30 (employed part-time); $20 (student/unemployed)

Donations
Donations are most welcome.  When donating $75 or more, your registration will be included, and a tax-deductible receipt will be issued for a portion of the donation.

Registration Form will be available on this site Monday, September 8.

Please continue to visit the Faith in the City blog for ongoing updates.  

WHERE WATERS MEET - Registration Form

To access the Faith in the City II (2014) Registration Form, click here.  Please print page 1, complete and submit to the Augustine United Church office.  Thank you for registering.

From Garden to Tower: Genesis 1-11

Chapter 6 in Buffalo Shout, Salmon Cry is written by Ched Myers, an activist theologian who has worked in social change movements for thirty-five years.  He is an educator who animates Scripture and issues of faith-based peace and justice.  Ched points to his solidarity work with Indigenous peoples in and around the Pacific Basin in the 1980s as key to his political and spiritual growth. (Information taken from biographical notes in Buffalo Shout, Salmon Cry).  Chapter 6 is titled:  “From Garden to Tower:  Genesis 1-11 as a Critique of Civilization and an Invitation to Indigenous Re-Visioning”.

The first of the following excerpts is from the opening of the chapter, the second from its conclusion.  Though the entire middle of his chapter is missing, my hope is that these excerpts will be helpful in capturing the essence of his writing.

Origin stories matter.  They tell us who we are, how we got this way, and what our responsibilities are to our collective past, present, and future.  They shape meaning and help us order life … for good or for ill.  (pp 109, 110)

...

The bold, archetypal strokes of Genesis 1-11 name our settler history, however unsettling its critique may be to those still loyal to the Promethean fables of modernity.  The biblical “fall” is not so much a cosmic moment of moral failure as a history of decline into civilization – exactly contrary to our mythic Western narrative of Progress.  As a literary expression of resistance to empire, the primeval creation story rightly warned us of the social pathologies and ecocidal consequences that have intensified exponentially now for a dozen millennia.

As a result, our generation faces a threefold crisis:

1.     The natural world has been increasingly demystified and subjected to ever more intense technological exploitation, to the point of collapse;

2.     Hierarchical social formation, economic stratification, and war have proliferated to the point of perpetual class and national conflict; and

3.     Human spiritual life and ecological competence have atrophied, resulting in our growing alienation from both nature and Spirit.

In light of this, the conversation represented in this book is crucial.  Our settler churches need to learn from contemporary keepers of Indigenous wisdom – both Christian and non-Christian – about how to re-vision creation care and sustainable community.  This includes exploring how a “Native hermeneutic” might help us re-read our sacred texts.  But this will also mean challenging deeply held assumptions about the congruency between “Christian civilization” and the will of Creator for humanity and nature.

Furthermore, we Christians need to re-center our theology and practices in real landscapes for which we take keen responsibility.  In southern California, our educational work around what we call “bioregional discipleship” is grounded specifically in the Ventura watershed.  We have come to understand that we can’t save what we don’t love, we can’t love what we don’t know, and we can’t know what we haven’t learned.  So, we are committed to literacy, both in the ecology of our watershed and in the painful history and remnant culture of the First Peoples of this place.  For us, this means experimenting with Native habitat preservation and restoration, and learning from Indigenous Chumash traditions of relationship to this landscape and habitat.

It is impossible to argue, given today’s ecological crisis, that the “civilized” life-ways of the last five thousand (or five hundred, or even fifty) years are as sustainable as those of the previous five hundred thousand.  Let us settlers heed the ancient wisdom of Genesis 1-11, which may be “all we have to fight off illness and death”.  And let us “repent” – which is to say, struggle alongside Native communities to turn our wrong-way history around, and recover the old ways for which we were created.  (pp 119-121)

 To put your hands on your own copy of Buffalo Shout, Salmon Cry, contact Steve Heinrichs at the offices of Mennonite Church, Canada.  It’s a powerful read.

The blog Easy Yolk has a interesting post about Myers' work.  You can read it here. 

Submitted by Gareth 

Unsettling Theology

BUFFALO SHOUT, SALMON CRY, edited by Steve Heinrichs, is a collection of essays and poetry, which offers up "alternative histories, radical theologies, and subversive memories that can unsettle our souls and work toward reconciliation" (taken from the back cover of book).  Buffalo Shout, Salmon Cry is available at the offices of Mennonite Church, Canada, on CMU campus.  Ask for Steven Heinrichs (Director of Indigenous Relations, Mennonite Church, Canada).

In the book's section titled Unsettling Theology, Randy Woodley's text "Early Dialogue in the Community of Creation" seeks to help Western Christians understand Scripture through the lens of Indigenous teachings which, he says, can be key to healing our world.  Woodley (Keetoowah Cherokee) serves as distinguished associate professor of faith and culture and director of intercultural and Indigenous studies at George Fox Seminary in Portland, Oregon.  He and his wife, Edith (Eastern Shoshone), have four children and lead a local Native American gathering in their home in Newberg, Oregon.

This excerpt is from the first part of his chapter.

EARLY DIALOGUE IN THE COMMUNITY OF CREATION
(Buffalo Shout, Salmon Cry ... pp 92-94)

The body of meaningful theological dialogue between North American Indigenous peoples and settler-Christians is paltry, and mostly covered with deep scars.  Indigenous peoples have been the recipients of the superabundance of Christian thought for over half a millennium, but most of the discourse has been directed at us, not with us.  In spite of these colonial and paternalistic realities, we - both Indigenous and settler peoples - share something unique and primal.  We all belong to a great community of creation, and we are participating in it together here on Turtle Island.  Each of us, including every non-human creature in this land, has a vested interest in seeing this creation community living and working well together.

The kingdom of God as the community of creation

Jesus, in his ancient context of imperial occupation, was also concerned with creation's harmony, and used the phrase kingdom of God to communicate this idea.  The metaphor was rightly understood by Jesus' audience in contradistinction to the kingdom of Caesar.  God's kingdom was a Spirit-filled community living out the Creator's shalom purposes on earth.   Of course, throughout Christian history this kingdom metaphor has been used to inspire action of diverse and even contradictory kinds, from the early monastic communities to the medieval Crusades, and from the Reformation to modern millennial movements.  Fortunately, kingdom discourse has recently taken on a softer, less militant tone, and is referenced by newer Christian movements to describe a faith that is holistic, broad in scope and cooperative in spirit.  I believe this fresh path in Christianity is a good starting point for dialogue with Indigenous peoples, for we have wisdom, stories, ceremonies, and theologies that might help us understand in deeper ways what Jesus meant by God's kingdom.

In our globalized and globally warming world, there is an urgent need for the Western church to recognize integrated constructs that encompass reciprocal relationships and the well-being of all things.  The rapacious industrial-imperial situations that we live under nexessitates a theology that can combat the death-dealing impacts of this "Roman Empire".  Perhaps engaging in biblical witness from an Indigenous perspective can help Western Christians do this, enabling us to revision Jesus' kingdom construct into what I call the "community of creation".

Jesus used kingdom language in his context because it made sense to the people and powers to whom he spoke.  His kingdom goal was stated simply:  "On earth as it is in heaven."  In other words, heaven's economy is to be made manifest in creation.  And what is heaven's economy?  It is shalom, a Hebrew term often translated as "peace".  But peace doesn't capture the depth of this word.  Shalom is who the Creator is - the one God, a trinity of persons (from a Christian perspective) dwelling in harmony, mutuality, and deference toward one another and the creation.  Shalom embodies wholeness, completeness, and love.  It is strikingly similar to many Indigenous constructs of "harmony", which emphasize the interconnectedness and interdependency of all things, the need for balance, and the primacy of community.  And if that is what Jesus' kingdom was about - radical shalom and harmony - it is helpful to translate this metaphor into something like community of creation, a phrase infused with Indigenous meaning, which more readily emphasizes that all living things are participating in this new peace that the Creator is bringing about through Christ.  God's shalom community includes more than just humans. ...

...

... For example, the classic New Testament phrase "For God so loved the world" is most often interpreted as addressing human beings.  But a more faithful reading of this text, which a "community of creation" lens facilitates, is that God loves everything, that God sent the Son to heal and redeem the entire creation, human and nonhuman.

Both Indigenous constructs about harmony and Scripture's teaching on shalom articulate the Creator's preferred ways of realizing peace and balance.  Both set forth practical steps for life as the Creator designed it.  They both also require specific action when these life-ways are broken, for restoration and wholeness are the goal.  Most importantly, they both originate in gratitude, always remembering  that life in all its forms is a gift from the Creator.

- submitted by Gareth N