Standing Rock: Spiritual Resistance with Integrity

From the Mennonite Church’s blog, “Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery,” with thanks to Keith Moore and David Mesenbring for telling me of this.

A REPORT FROM STANDING ROCK

Helen Hudgens is a missionary kid raised among Aboriginal people in north Brazil. She is on the faculty of the North Park University School of Music in Chicago, where she co-directs the Gospel Choir. She is an Anabaptist living in intentional community and currently serves a Black Baptist church in Evanston. She is the proud mom of two young adults. This reflection was written on Dec. 1, 2016

We took 20 North Park University students and 6 faculty/staff to Oceti Sakowin, Nov. 19 to 22. I stayed on to Nov. 26. Students braved the cold, jumped into volunteer roles sorting donations, helping in the kitchens and working in the medic areas.

Sunday night, Nov. 20, we were debriefing the day around a fire when a runner came through the camp, calling people to come forward to the bridge where police where "shooting people." We had been told to not react too swiftly, that not all calls to action were vetted by camp leaders, so we waited. But we could see that half the camp was mobilizing toward the bridge north of camp, a road that has been blocked for 3 weeks by a massive police barrier and military vehicles. We could see clouds of smoke illuminated by floodlights and hear explosions. Soon, it was emergency vehicles coming back from that line to the medic area, with cries of "Injuries! Clear the road." At that point I told the students: "Use good judgment. You don't have to join this one. But if you want to, let's go see how we can contribute."

Most of us went to the medic area, where one car after another was unloading people completely soaked in freezing water, tear gas and pepper spray. The medics were performing admirably. It was great field medicine at work: a tent to decontaminate clothing and wash people down, warm clothes to change into, warm soup and tea - or, in some cases, an ambulance to take serious injuries to the hospital (the long way mind you, because the closest route was blocked). And there were serious injuries: lots of hypothermia, several cardiac arrests, rubber bullet contusions. One woman's arm was so badly injured in an explosion that it almost had to be amputated. At some point, I decided I had to go up to the action and see what was happening. It was surreal. Unbelievable. 800 people on the bridge. Billowing sheets of water and tear gas backlit by floodlights. Military deployment behind razor wire that was at this point eerily covered in brilliant ice. A battle scene.

You've seen the pictures. I guess I just want to say that any reports that suggest that the water protectors on my side of that police line were being violent towards police is false. The water protectors were chanting, singing, shouting their slogans - Mni Wiconi! mostly - and moving forward into the line of fire in groups of twos and threes. Police were firing everything in their arsenal right at them at close range. Tear gas, concussion grenades, rubber bullets 3 inches long and 2 inches thick, fired from rifles. And then the water cannons, mounted on a military vehicle, not a fire truck. I stood just outside the 60 foot range of that thing but watched it aim and take down person after person. It was a lethal weapon in those temperatures. It was only by sheer luck (or divine protection) that no one died that night. It was clear to me that there was little command and control on the police side - no one to temper an almost adolescent joy in causing injury or death. It went on most of the night.

There is no excuse for this. There are only lies trying to cover egregious aggression by morally compromised, undisciplined law enforcement being paid to "serve and protect" the american fossil fuel industry. This is exactly the tactic being used in other countries (see Chevron and Ecuador). We're finally seeing it here on home soil.

The camp was quiet and reeling from the trauma the next day. There is a rhythm to camp life that begins with morning prayers around the sacred fire in the center, every day before dawn. That did not happen Monday - probably because the leaders were either injured or attending to people who were injured. There was an open meeting held by the tribal elders at 4 p.m., one of many councils I was privileged to observe. There is room for people to speak, be heard, all held within a sacred space. The elders were not happy with the bridge action. One tribal member had taken an independent action, not approved by the elders, of trying to remove the two burned-out trucks the police had used to barricade the road (this after Morton County had failed on its promise to open the road). He had used his semi cab with a grappling hook and was successful in getting one truck off the road. That was when police massed at the line, and the camp mobilized in front of them, afraid that the police would come forward and raid the camp. For their part, the police were afraid the protectors were trying to push through the barricade. The elders summed it up this way: "This action was not grounded in prayer. That's why people got hurt."

The man responsible for the truck action was in tears and apologized. For the next two days there was a deep reassessment of how to reground ourselves, especially among the non-native allies who were beginning to pour into the camp by the thousands for the Thanksgiving weekend. A reassertion that the ground is prayer and commitment to non-violence. A simple trust that the cause is just and that God is on the side of justice. Against overwhelming odds - that the Spirit of God is stronger. And that the officers on the other side of the line are humans also deserving of respect and love. Prayers for their well being. So remarkably like Jesus! Understanding that these officers are in a trance, blinded by an evil system in its last death grip trying to hang on to "the kingdom of this world." Prayers that they - and the rest of us - would wake up and live into our birthright as the human family, the children of God.

I went to Standing Rock feeling heavy. I was alarmed and depressed by the election, unsettled by a vague threat thickening the air around me. "I've lost my joy," I told my daughter the day before I left. Seven days camped at Oceti Sakowin completely changed my mood.

For one thing, it's amazingly beautiful country. Wide open skies and plains. Coyotes howling their music at night. Pheasants jumping out of the tall grass as we drove passed. Stars flaming in the cold night air. Crystalline new moon setting just before dawn. Hoar frost, half an inch thick, covering grass and tree branches (and tables and chairs) overnight, and then glowing as though lit up from the inside as the first rays of sun crept out of the hills. Beauty like that has always been a balm to my soul.

After an intense weekend, I was relieved that the NPU students and staff were safe, not completely frostbitten, and set to return to Chicago on Monday and Tuesday. I had been invited to stay on, partnering with a delegation from Christian Peacemaker Teams (the group that had provided our students with non-violence training before we left). And so I was gifted with a few more days of an immersion into another sort of beauty that I want to try to capture.

The Sacred Rock camps are, next to the Black Lives Matter movement, perhaps the most important contemporary experiment in community, democracy, and free speech in recent memory:  an incubator for the next phase of activism and movement work for the Trump era. Functioning like the Highlander Center in the Civil Rights movement, it is a place to educate, to conspire, to learn by trial and error how to resist oppression, to tell stories and share wisdom from struggles all over the continent. It happens informally, around fire circles and kitchens and in affinity camps that have sprung up inside the big camps: "Unions for Standing Rock," "Black Lives Matter NYC," "Two-Spirit Camp," "Veterans for Peace," "Public School Teachers," etc., plus dozens of First Nations encampments. It also happens in daily training sessions and council circles. All newcomers to camp go through an orientation, and everyone must be trained before they participate in direct action.

The day I went for training, the place was packed beyond capacity. A young Latinx woman from California introduced herself. She works for a non-profit that does activism training for communities of color. “I’m here at the invitation of the tribal elders. There are many perspectives on what constitutes non-violent direct action. You need to know that we are respecting and staying in line with these directives the elders have given us:

• We are protectors not protestors

• We are peaceful and prayerful

• “ ----- isms” have no place here

• We are non-violent

• We respect the locals

• We are proud to stand – no masks

• No weapons or what can be considered a weapon

• Property damage does not get us closer to our goal

• No children in potentially dangerous situations

• We keep each other accountable

• This is a ceremony. Act accordingly!”

The “No ---isms” piece was evident all over camp. People were using the language of “settler colonialism” (see PatrickWolfe, 2006) and its attempt to erase indigenous culture, language and spirituality, detaching people from their heritage land. We kept being reminded that this is not new – “We’ve been fighting colonialism for 500 years!” True, the DAPL pipeline was being read as the latest exemplar in a closet full of ugly colonial abuses. But more than that, the disrespecting, entitled reach for power-over and the purposeful cultivation of hatred that DAPL was literally carving into the soil on these lands was a poison that all of us were being called to reject. Within ourselves. In this understanding, everyone had come into contact with settler/colonialism in some way and had been hurt and infected. And hurt people act out by hurting others, often those closest to them. Call it racism, sexism, misogyny, patriarchy, hetero-normativism, ableism or classism. How do we decolonize ourselves?

While the cry at camp was “What are we here for?” – “TO STOP THE PIPELINE!” it was clear that we were being asked to work for that goal “in a good way.” I heard that line over and over from indigenous people: in personal testimonies, “I’m standing here, talking to you now, and I’m coming in a good way,” or in prayer: “Creator, please help us show up here in a good way,” or as admonishment, “Get it together people! This is not a good way!” I was fascinated with what this “way” looked like, how it was being practiced. Here are some observations:

1. Everything is bathed in prayer. This is what moved me the most and, along with the no drugs or alcohol pillar, may be behind the distinction frequently made by our trainers: “This is not Burning Man or Occupy or Rainbow!” Prayer was the first and last activity. Before dawn, a deep-throated emcee rouses people through a booming loudspeaker: “Get up, Oceti! Wake up, Red Warriors! Wake up, Rosebud! We have work to do. You’re here for a reason! Wake up Christians! Dust off those Bibles and polish those crosses! This is not a vacation! Time to pray!”

Morning prayer convenes around a continuously tended sacred fire. Sage and cedar are burned. Songs are sung, and prayers are spoken or chanted in Lakota and English. Someone offers an exhortation. The women then lead a water blessing ceremony and take the gathering in a procession to the river’s edge, where personal prayers and songs are offered. Prayer is also THE medium of non-violent direct action. I participated in 3 of these over the course of 3 days. Every one had the goal of moving to and holding a symbolically significant public or contested indigenous space by means of a large circle of people, and then praying and holding ceremony on that space.

2. I saw a very spontaneous, large collective (on Nov. 24 the camp passed 15,000!), being held collaboratively with balance and equilibrium. All allies are welcome, and yet we are guests. There are multiple circles of conversation and decision-making. Sometimes, the circles are restricted to tribal elders, but mostly they are completely open. Many voices and perspectives are given the floor. Every action is debriefed. People are validated, encouraged, honored. People showing up with different gifts are given room. A man from Ojai, CA, who puts on “French toast events for 500” showed up on Thanksgiving Saturday and promptly was given access to “Grandma’s Kitchen.” (Grandma herself, a Piute elder from the Owens River Valley, CA, has been feeding 400 to 500 people per meal for a month now – always smiling, always ready to give a hug.)

3. People are encouraged to be independent and resourceful, not depending on the camp’s resources AND they are living communally. Free clothing in one tent; free food in another; free basic medic care; a winterizing construction team willing to put a wood floor in your tent. “Take care of yourself first. You’re no good to the camp if you hurting your own body in some way.” (A ban on alcohol, drugs and possession of weapons is strictly maintained.) “Take care of your family and friends next.” There are counseling tents; a tent for massage, another for acupuncture. People routinely talk about PTSD and ways to cope.

4. The needs and concerns of women and children receive great attention. A “grandmother’s circle” is held every day. Older ones admonish the younger ones about all kinds of things: “No women and children sleeping in their cars!” or, “You must wear a skirt in ceremony!” and then giving the reason why: “The skirt is your tepee. It channels the power of mother earth from her skin upward to your heart and then up through your head to Grandfather sky. It empowers you.” (That was enough to get me wearing mine!) The younger ones are encouraged to raise concerns: “I think we need to ask the men to gather and talk amongst themselves about domestic abuse and rape culture.”

5. There is space for laughter and song, storytelling and dancing. Oh – and lots of drumming!

I’m not sure which one of these worked its healing potion into my world-weary bones that week. I know that the last morning, as I stood in a prayer circle by that frozen river, I did a full body check-in. I felt lighter. Something had shifted. I went back internally to a couple of wounded places that have resisted healing for a long time. Even those were peaceful that morning. Maybe it was the sweet scent of cedar in the air. Maybe it was a balm rising from the hard mud flat beneath me through my ceremonial skirt. “Thank you, Jesus” was on my lips. Thank you Great Spirit, flowing across this land.

Post-Truth & Consequences

When I was once very young (no, this is not a Winnie the Pooh story) my parents allowed having few comic books. One I was permitted was titled “True Comics” with the sub-title “Truth is Far Greater than Fiction.” Great reading and the stories were all true, and exciting.

Just recently the Oxford Dictionary approved a new word, its 2016 word of the year: ‘post-truth’, meaning “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”

And that’s where we are with the recent presidential campaigns, that of the GOP in particular, post-truth, and lots more.

And we’re also now starting to face the consequences of that campaign, as rhetoric gives way to reality. The swamp seem deeper each day as the president-elect surrounds himself with Wall Street notables and Washington elites, one of whom may be wealthier than he.

Consequences (and great examples of post-truth). Lookout public education. Don’t look for jobs returning or staying in the USA (the recent Carrier job-save is a great post-truth). Talk of scrapping trade agreements and imposing high import tarrifs wasn’t what Washington State’s agricultural ‘red’ counties expected when their tree fruit and wheat exports to China were threatened with reverse tariffs. Creating new jobs when unemployment rate rate is currently the lowest it has been in years, plus industry’s increasing reliance on cost-saving robotics?  Granted, 4.6 % doesn’t seem all that low when you’re making just $7.50 an hour or semi- or permanently unemployed.

And as the world grows smaller and vulnerable, retrenching from international security agreements, and perhaps more crucially, poo-pooing climate change science, doesn’t exactly give one comfort; just ask the polar bears, or if your serious, the Pacific Island folk. The whole world is our island home.

And then, if you want to go there, is the murky mix of the office of the presidency and the Trump business world (111 companies/ventures in 18 countries), plus the role of family members as senior political advisors as well as being Mr. Trump’s business managers.

But most telling of all is my reading of religious webpages, blogs, Facebook postings, and sermons. Never in recent history have so many expressed such deep concern of the outcome of the election. What I hear and read is not partisan, for the underlying issue being the contradiction between the person of the president-elect and his stated values, personal and political, and Judeo-Christian and Muslim values and the values of so many people of other faiths and those who hold to no special faith system. Ultimate hope is not diminished, but what I read are concerns for women, their reproductive rights as well as their personhood; for those marginalized; for the poor and almost poor; for the unemployed, for the immigrant and refugee, for the LGBTQ; for gender equality. All this from mainline religious groups and writers, some of whom have been threatened and even buildings vandalized for their stands.

Yet the greatest consequence from the campaign, and reinforced by Mr. Trump’s emerging advisory circle, is the dark response to his racial rhetoric of white supremacy, unleashed and given voice and permission by the election. The dark side of our country has crawled out from under the rock. (The Southern Poverty Law Center, as of November 30^th, documented 772 instances of hate crimes, higher even than those reported following 9/11).

Yes, elections do have their consequences, as Bill Penzey, of Penzey Spices recently pointed out, citing this white supremacy emergence . (Penzey’s online sales went up 59.9%, gift box sales up 135%, following his FaceBook posting, in spite of the “so-called ‘right wing firestorm.’ And, yes, they send emails of rage, and ALL CAPS, and bad language with the hope of creating the perception that they are bigger than they really are.”)

On  Friday, January 20^th, we will be inaugurating an overt racist, not to mention a sexual abuser, and more, as our 45^th president. We’ll come face-to-face with the consequences. “He tells it like it is” will take on new meaning. Those who voted for him may well, and for the most part probably will, discover disappointment and betrayal (the mark of a good con). And those who chose not to vote? Well, there again, consequences.

Let’s not accept or be seduced to the new normal. Elections do have their consequences.

But God help us.

JFK Remembered

A remeberance of John F Kennedy on the anniversary of his assassination  November 22, 1963 (an encore posting)

 

It was Tuesday, May 16, 1961, a day many of us had been working towards for weeks. As was the practice those days, the Government Hospitality Committee was responsible for all VIP visits and the Canadian Army's Directorate of Public Relations provided the technical media coordination.

Earlier in the month three of us, plus the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, met with the White House advance party to plan President Kennedy's two day state visit to Canada, his first presidential visit to a foreign country. The ever-cigar-smoking Pierre Salinger, JFK's press secretary, was there but soon turned over media responsibility to his deputy.

Media arrangements for covering VIP visits to Canada were generally somewhat casual. The working press trusted us to get them to where they needed to be, providing them with necessary background materials, and when necessary, arranging pool coverage of more intimate or somewhat restricted events. RCMP presence was more to keep amateurs away from the working press than to "police" the media. It was all quite calm and refined. The arrival of the White House Press Corps came as a shock!

The presidential arrival was to take place at Ottawa's Royal Canadian Air Force Station Uplands. We had anticipated two or three photographers' locations to catch JFK and Jacqueline arriving on Canadian soil. Not good enough, said the White House press, we need a camera truck at each end of the runway. Why? Well, you never know if Air Force One will crash and we need that picture.

And that same sort of aggressive approach continued on for most of the two days, diminishing somewhat as they learned to trust what we were doing, and that we were doing it for them. It seemed as though their experience was, for the most part, confrontational rather than collaborative.

The arrival went as planned, if not two hours late. A state visit, Governor General Georges Vanier and Madame Vanier first greeted the American couple. Then Prime Minister George Diefenbaker and Mrs. Diefenbaker.

The party then moved inside the RCAF hanger for the official welcoming speeches, a moment when JFK won the hearts of all Canada when, following the Prime Minister's greeting first in English and then French, President Kennedy responded.

He explained that he had planned to reply in English and then ask his wife to respond in French, but after hearing the prime minister's fractured French, he had no hesitation in using his own French-speaking skill! A politician from the Manitoba prairies, the Prime Minister's French was always painful and the butt of much late night Canadian humor.

And when on the final day of the visit, addressing the Canadian Parliament, President Kennedy, uttered his famous aphorism, "Geography has made us neighbours; history has made us friends," 

Canada swooned!

Before he retired his commission, the writer of "Aft Deck Musings . . . ", was the news editor for the Canadian Army's Directorate of Public Relations and responsible for national media coordination of VIP visits. Mike was inducted as an Honorary Life Member of the National Press Corps of Canada on his retirement.

Veterans' Day and the Election

Veterans’ Day, November 11^th, has passed (except for the those great sales you just can’t afford to miss), and most every year I post a blog observing the day. This year was different. The election three days prior had a severe numbing affect, putting everything in abeyance while I tried to sort out not only the results, but more importantly the meaning of it to us as a nation.

Back to November 11^th. Veterans’ Day was a re-naming in 1954 of Armistice Day, and its focus moved from remembering those who had died in battle to a recognition of all military veterans. (Memorial Day, originally a day set aside to decorate the graves of the Union war dead, eventually extended to honor all Americans who dies while in military service.) In Canada, and much of the British Commonwealth, Armistice Day was renamed Remembrance Day, but still keeping the theme remembering those who had died in battle.

Since my 15-years of military service was in Canada, my natural bias is to observe the 11^th as Remembrance Day, and so I do.

Soldiering is an honorable profession. We considered ourselves professionals (just like teachers, firefighters, nurses, police). We asked for no special honors or recognition, only that we be treated with respect. If we had privilege, it is only that we represented the Crown (Canada) or the State (USA).

And when in times of conflict, some died, and their deaths honored by the people for their service. Hence, Remembrance Day, for it was at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month that the fighting ended WW I, and the people paused to remember their dead.

And the dead were honored for why they died. Soldiers were, and probably still are, not interested in the finer points of citizenship, or political stances and nuances. Rough, and at times exemplifying bravado. Yet, somehow, within the heart and mind of the soldier was the deeper notion of rightness and just cause that empowered them into battle, and, for some, into their death.

Reflecting on the election in light of the sacrifice of over 623,400 US troops who died during the two world wars, Korea, Viet Nam, and Afghanistan and Iraq is sobering. Their notion of rightness and justice simply clashes like a teutonic earthquake with the rhetoric, and by extension the deep values expressed, of the now president-elect.

Let me back off here for a moment. There is no question that as a nation there has been growing a deep frustration for a great, great many around what life and work and value was hoped for, was what could be, but simply was not. Powers, be they elites or politicians or “government”, were just not hearing them, just not dealing with their issues and challenges, in effect not respecting them as members of this nation, of their life, of their work, of their hopes and dreams. They felt disenfranchised, ignored. Much of this alienation and separation was between the perceived world of the rural and that of the city, but not entirely. Historians, sociologists, and political scientists, and others will in the days and years ahead parse why and how this great upheaval in the nation manifested itself in the election result.

And out of this there emerged a champion. History is complete with champions who emerge and coalesce those who hurt economically and socially, those who see no answer until someone comes forward with the promise of change, real and lasting change, a returning to a time before the hurt. And listeners become followers and followers become disciples. And so a Donald Trump emerges, making promises, tapping into the frustrations, and naming the causes of the hurt.

Yet in this championing, the champion brings both his own value-system as well as his own history, folding much of these into his message of salvation. What finally emerges is a champion who purports business acumen, whose behavior is sociopathic; who is a blatant liar (even when truth is clearly there for the seeing); who sees women as man-toys, objects; who bullies those who oppose him; and most glaring of all, targets ethnic and racial minorities while at the same time condones (even encouraging?) white supremacy, plus a strong leaning towards fascism. A dark side of our nation is brought out of the shadows and even celebrated.

And a hungry following, hungry for change and hope, somehow look past their champion’s character in hopes that there will be that new world promised for them.

And those we honor on Armistice Day, Remembrance Day, Memorial Day lie in their graves, shrouded with their notions of rightness and justice and cause.

And the peoples march and protest, not as election losers (and certainly not paid ‘professionals’), but calling this nation to its better self; free of bigotry and misogyny; a nation of many nationalities, cultures, and faiths; caring for the poor, the vulnerable, the refugee and the homeless; a nation of justice; and decrying the ugly violence and hate and racism, born and given breath from the champion’s campaign that now infects, breaking the heart of this land The protest and marches are, at their best, noble expressions of outrage.

[Also see Rod Scher’s Geekly Weekly blog, "The World Gets Smaller. And Flatter. And Angrier"]

Liel Leibovitz, a senior writer for Tablet Magazine, reflecting on the life of his grandfather in Nazi Germany, puts forth three ‘commandments.’ First, treat every poisoned word as promise, taking the haters at their word, and assume the worst is imminent. Second, treat people as adults, demanding that they understand the consequences of their actions. And third, and the hardest to grasp: Refuse to accept what’s going on as the new normal. Not now. Not ever. [read the full article here] 

At one time, on every November 11th, soldiers and civilians alike wore red poppies, a reminder of those who were killed, drawing from that immortal poem written by the Canadian physician Lt.Col John McCrae in Ypres in 1915.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

Last week also saw the death of Canadian songwriter and poet, Leonard Cohen, who recited that stirring poem last year in a moving tribute to McCrae.