Thanks -- but No Thanks
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
(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."
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, this idyllic
tale doesn't portray the stark reality. A holocaust occurred as
the European colonists descended on this continent. They brought with them white supremacy, a harshly judgmental Christianity, the European notion of private property, and an emergent
capitalism. (The pilgrims received a land patent from the London
Virginia Company and financing from Company of Adventurers. The investors who formed these corporations sought to profit by colonizing lands overseas. )
Although the set of democratic ideals
set forth in the Preamble to the US Constitution reflect humanity's quest for a just society, "our
forefathers" also brought forth on this continent disease, death,
domination, and the destruction of a Way of Life. Rather than embrace the indigenous cultures that seemed to better understand and
honor humanity's
relationship to Mother Earth, to the Great Spirit, and to the Circle of
All Life, we branded them heathens -- and drove them out of their homelands.
The worldview of the Indigenous People embraced Connection and Reverence. Our forefathers
brought with them, instead, the Unbridled Greed buried
in the belly of Capitalism, and a myopic form of doctrinal Christianity that produces a profound sense of separation from one
another, from the natural world, and
from our spiritual connection to all that is.
Through
force of arms, including germ warfare and the power of "law," the bad guys won.
Unfortunately for Mother Earth and her myriad beings, they still hold
tremendous power today.
Yet,
it doesn't have to be that way forever.
It
is true that history shows us that those
with more guns and less morals have often taken power. Yet, the opposite is also true.
In my own lifetime, 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 existed here in the "land of the free." Non-violent revolutions toppled the communist governments of eastern Europe.
So....?
(READ MORE)
