I haven't written to you in awhile and I miss our people. I can spend long months with the Waapa, but their values, their complaints, and particularly their angers at various, petty things begin to wear. They like to call one another names and judge people by their social class while pretending that they aren't. It is fatiguing. As Grandfather would say, they "hate their own home". That is not a formula for a healthy people.
So, Waapa lesson #1 this week:
Trees are bad for the woods.
A Waapa woman is upset that trees fell in the woods and she wants them picked up so that wild nature can conform to Waapa will. Today it's trees, two centuries ago The People were the ones the Waapa wanted removed from the woods. I guess this is an improvement.
Waapa Lesson #2:
Donald Trump is a vile, boorish person filled with hate so I will hate him in a vile, boorish manner. This is how I'm morally superior to him.
I have become used to avoiding the network news, the cable news, late night comedians, other clergy, ESPN sportscasters, and Hollywood "royalty". Their standard sentence structure is "subject, predicate, Trump". It seems to me there might be other things going on in the world.
Maybe you and I have a different historical perspective, but ever since Abraham Lincoln permitted the greatest mass hanging in U.S. history, that of our tribal brothers [most of whom were Episcopalian], I don't think that our people have regarded the President of The United States as a combination of Superman and the Pope. With good reason, I think.
However, the Waapa put a lot of importance in that office. So much so that I now cannot engage in an interesting conversation with people at a dinner party without someone demanding my silence while a tedious anti-Trump song is played. On their phone. At a dinner table.
Indians sure have bad table manners, don't they? That's what the Waapa used to tell me when I was a child. It would be tragic if not so funny.
I hope to see you at the Great Reunion after Christmas, but it will be hard
for me to get away for more than a day or so. I will always have happy
memories of the two of us singing the life song for our fathers. I hope
that someone may do the same for us when the day arrives.
“So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people."
We have a beautiful literary tradition, don't we?
Saloniki,
Lalawethika
“So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people."
We have a beautiful literary tradition, don't we?
Saloniki,
Lalawethika