Thanks -- and No Thanks!

 

Thanks -- and No Thanks

Some Personal Reflections on Thanksgiving Day 2024

"Oh, Great Spirit whose voice I hear in the winds, 
and whose breath gives life to all the world, hear me, I am small and weak,  
I need your strength and wisdom." 
 -- from a prayer

by Lakota Chief Yellow Lark, 1887
(Read Entire Prayer)

"Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, 
it was loaned to you by your children. 
We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, 
we borrow it from our Children." 

-- Ancient Native American Proverb

 

The three day feast that brought together 90 Wampanoags and the 50 surviving Pilgrims at Plymouth Plantation in 1621 has become part of our nation's mythology.

Unfortunately, the idyllic tale that was presented to me as a child was distorted and incomplete.  It didn't portray the dark side of the European colonization of the Americas. 

If the truth be told, a genocide began as "our forefathers" descended upon this continent.  They brought with them a three-fold horror.  

Embodying a worldview dominated by white supremacy,  a distorted and highly judgmental Christianity, and the avarice of an emerging capitalism, "our forefathers brought forth on this continent" a cultural cauldron that still wrecks havoc in the world today. 

Although the set of ideals set forth in the foundational documents of the United States reflect humanity's quest for an egalitarian, democratic, and just society, the settler colonists (who received a land patent and funding from London investment corporations) brought forth on this continent disease, death, and domination. With their vision obscured by their worldview,  most of the Pilgrims who invaded Massachusetts at Plymouth didn't recognize the humanity or the rich spirituality of the indigenous people of this continent.

The indigenous people had lived in the vast expanse what came to be called the Americas for upward of 10,000 years.  Like other indigenous people, an ethos of connection and reverence was embedded in their worldview.  All of existence, the sentient and inanimate, the seen and unseen, was perceived as an interconnected web of relationships.   Reciprocity rather than personal advantage were widely valued.

Our forefathers brought with them, instead, the unbridled greed buried in the belly of capitalism and their myopic form of doctrinal Christianity. Each produces a profound sense of separation.  Increasingly, each individual is experienced as fundamentally separate from other individuals, from the natural world, and from a notion of the immanence of the sacred dimension of being. 

Through force of superior weapons, germ warfare, and the power of European political and religious"law," the European settler colonists arrived at Plymouth and elsewhere, then swept across the continent.  Unfortunately for Mother Earth and her myriad beings, these forces still hold tremendous power in our world today.  Propelled by powerful elites and a misshapen worldview, those who have the most institutional power in determining our future, seem dead set on a suicidal mission.  If a nuclear war doesn't destroy life as we know it, a climate catastrophe may.

Yet, it doesn't have to be this way.

It is true that history shows us that those with more guns and less morals have often taken power.  Yet, in the 20th century, Mahatma Gandhi, armed with nothing but a spinning wheel, the force of Great Loving Soul, and the Power of the People, sent the mighty British Empire packing.  Martin Luther King and legions of non-violent activists toppled the framework of legal racial segregation that had existed here in the "land of the free." Non-violent revolutions toppled the Marcos dictatorship in the Phillipines, and the communist governments of eastern Europe. 

So....? 
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Thanks -- and, no thanks.

The Sitting Bull you don't read about in your history books

It has been years since I celebrated  Thanksgiving as most folks in the United States do.

It's true that I feel a deep gratitude for being alive at age 78.  I'm grateful that I experienced the collective kensho of the Hippie Spiritual Pentecost of the 1960's and 1970's.

I feel a deep gratitude  for family and friends, and for the great material richness that I experience even as poor pensioner living well below the poverty line with the support of public housing, health care, and food assistance.

I also feel gratitude that the virulence and terror of the COVID pandemic has abated and friends and family will be gathering to share the conviviality of this traditional holiday event.

Yet, in my morning meditation, I intend to practice Tonglen meditation, consciously taking time to mourn the horror and tragedy that ensued in the wake of the European invasion.  I will mourn  the suffering of countless sentient beings whose lives have, and continue to be, stunted or destroyed through the lack of human decency and understanding that characterizes Rapacious Capitalism, White Supremacist Racism, and Clueless Christendom (Which is not to be confused with a Christianity that emerges from actually following Jesus's teachings of Love and Service).  I will take time to connect with my heart's vision and pray for our collective healing.

I will also be mindful of the presence of the National Day of Mourning organized by the United American Indians of New England.  Although I will not attend the gathering in Plymouth this year as I have a few times in the past, this Gathering of indigenous people from all across this hemisphere continues to inspire me.  They will be livestreaming most of the day's activities  on YouTube this year.  (Respecting the wishes of the elders, the opening ceremony will not be broadcast.  They expect to "go live" virtually at about 12:30 PM.)  I feel a deep gratitude for the courage and the resilience and the leadership of the First Peoples of this continent.  I pray that I can be a worthy ally.

This year's National Day of Mourning

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