Hey - if you're here looking for new stuff, you're likely going to be disappointed. Check here instead.
January 15, 2005 On the night of January 8, 2004, Carl and I arrived in Porcupine accompanied by his parents and our two cats. On the evening of January 3rd, 2005, (almost exactly one year later, did you notice?) Carl and I were driving home on BIA highway 27. We were returning from our holiday vacation with my family in cloudy, wet and green Seattle. The reservation landscape was brown and dry and bright, smiling at us and welcoming us back. As we were driving home, past Sharps' corner, past the hills behind Evergreen Housing, and past the Porcupine School billboard anouncing the time and temperature, I was thinking back to one year earlier when we'd first made that drive. We were traveling in an old van packed with all our things, Carl and his dad in the front seat; and his mom, myself, and our two cats in the back. I remember when we first spotted the trailer down the hillside. The ground was covered in snow then, and the roads were icy. I remember first setting foot in the trailer and watching our two cats slink cautiously around the strange space, checking to see if it was safe. The evening was dark and cold, but in the morning, the sun came out to warm the day and to melt away the snow. A year later, as we pulled into our driveway, I realized I was coming home to a new year. What would this new year mean for us? Who would we meet? What would we learn? The next morning we awoke to a soft silent snowfall. I lay in my bed, watching the flakes drifting slowly down, remembering the bright snowmelt of the year before. The next three days were a marathon of program planning and evaluations (and more snow). What had we done in the past year? Did we meet our expectations? What changes did we want to make in the coming year? (If you're interested in the answers to these questions, let us know and we can send you typed evidence that we did some thinking here). Looking back, I wonder, can I even remember what it felt like to be an utter stranger here? Now I'm still a stranger, but a more familiar one. Like the one you've seen walking down the street everyday, but you've never talked with. Or like that person you've talked with many times, yet you feel you've only begun to scratch the surface of who they are. Before I was an outsider who knew no one, for whom a trip to the post office or the grocery store was a new experience. Everything I did felt like I was doing it for the first time. Now I'm a stranger who has friends here, who recognizes names and faces, who knows her way around, who understands the context for discussions, who has a routine and place in someone else's community. In my life, this one year has been like an eternity. So many things have changed since we arrived. All I can hope is that in this one year, I have taken a step towards something positive, something new, something even hopeful. But what is one year against 150 years of genocide and oppression? One year of one white person stumbling around trying to make a few things right, trying to be part of a new kind of world where justice and peace are a reality. How does that stand against one hundred and fifty years of a life and death struggle of a people? Or against 500 years of the indigenous people of the Americas fighting the brutality of Columbus' arrival, and the death and destruction of the earth and her people that followed him? And when I feel the weight of all those dark years, then I remind myself to turn around and look back even further. How do those 500 years of genocide and denial committed by my European American relatives stand against the thousands of years that went before, when Indigenous people lived with and cared for this beautiful continent? What is 500 years to a million? The other day, a neighbor said to me, "We have always been here and will always remain here. We were here before you came, we are still here now, and we will still be here in that time when the white man no longer exists." When can we begin living in God's time and God's place? Will that be in this year's program plans? Was it in last year's, or maybe it will appear in years to come? How many centuries will it take for us to allow the light of the day to shine on our shame? How many centuries will it take us to face who we have been and who we are, and to right our wrongs? How many centuries will it take before those who believe in freedom can rest? I guess it takes more than one year, but one year is a start :-) I know my years of impact are greater than this one. There are the twenty-four years of my life, and all the people I have known or met, all the places I have been. And all the years of my parents and grandparents lives, and so forth. But today I am looking out at one cycle of the seasons, which right now involves squinting (sun and snow are a very bright combination). The MCC Oglala Lakota Nation Unit would like to wish all of you a Wonderful New Year filled with hope and the promise of God's Kingdom to come, (or that's here now?)! Lots of love, Karissa p.s. Try this link for new pictures of family vacations, snowy Porcupine landscapes, puppies, etc. http://www.meyerloewen.net p.p.s. For those of you expecting a report from November - December, I'll sum it up quick. November was a quieter month for us. I spent 2 days a week volunteering at the elementary school. We attended lots of community events and Thanksgiving dinners, made one trip out to Pennsylvania for the MCC Peace & Justice Network meeting, attended a refreshing spiritual retreat with the Pine Ridge Area Ministerial Association, and began working with a partner on developing a community Newsletter, among other things. On November 2nd, while the world was watching the US national elections, and while Daschle, the Clintons, and Ted Kennedy were making desperate calls to KILI to get more voters to the polling booths, the Oglala Sioux Tribe elected its first female president ever: Cecelia Fire Thunder. She ran successfully against Russell Means (the incumbent, John Yellow Bird Steele, didn't make it past the primaries). People are mostly holding their breath to see what this change will mean. On the personal side, I also made a short trip to Texas with my friend Shanti to visit our friends on death row. Her friend Demarco was executed just days after we left -- it was a heavy trip. We were with my mom's family in Eastern South Dakota for Thanksgiving. We had a wonderful pre-holiday visit from Carl's family. And of course, we had a lovely holiday in the Pacific Northwest with mine. p.p.p.s. For those of you who are interested in what the coming week holds for us (because it's pretty packed!), we will be attending an exciting anti-oppression training titled 'Unite to Fight.' It will be happening Monday through Wednesday in the Black Hills. It's the first of it's kind, but there are plans for there to be more if all goes well. The training will be led by our predecessor Harley Eagle and our friend Kimberly Tilsen. We've been involved in the planning and are very excited that we have been invited to participate as well. Then on Thursday through Saturday of the same week, we'll be up in Rapid City for the second session of the OLN Discernment Meetings. The goal of these meetings is to think about how MCC could better support the work that our partners are asking us to do at the Oglala Lakota Nation. We're also addressing the question of where our unit should be located within the MCC structure (our current supervisory situation is considered temporary). The meetings are being facilitated by our friend Ruth Yellow Hawk, and the Discernment Group includes 6 representatives from different parts of MCC's structure in addition to ourselves. We're excited about the potential for both of these events -- we'll let you know how they go. p.p.p.p.s. If you're really feeling empathetic in this year reflection stuff, and I mean really, or if you're just really bored and have nothing better to do, or both, you could join me in rereading our updates from the past year: http://www.meyerloewen.net Let us know if you do, so you can get a star prize from us. p.p.p.p.p.s Put your hands in front of your face, wave them around. I don't know how many tens that is but it probably adds up to the number of people who have gotten stuck in our driveway in the past two weeks. Okay, how about in the past day? Can someone please send us a sign that says 'Don't even think about it! (unless you have 4 wheel drive and lots of clearance)' in big letters so we can post it at the top of our driveway? Or maybe just a snowplow if that's easier. You could consider it a donation to MCC...
