Beloved St. John’s community,
On Monday the 16th, I met with the Rev. Brad Hauff, Missioner for Indigenous Ministries of the Episcopal Church. The Rev. Hauff has spoken twice at St. John’s to help us learn about the Episcopal Church’s relationship with Indigenous peoples. At our Monday lunch we discussed how St. John’s might continue learning and acting on behalf of justice for Indigenous peoples. Through a series of communications that I can only describe as being led by the Spirit, we also went to visit the grave of Dakota people who had been removed from a burial ground not far from where we were having lunch. Indigenous burial grounds have dotted the landscape of Minnesota for millennia. Many of them have been removed, ceremoniously or not, to make space for urban growth and development. In this particular case, a horse pulling a carriage in the late 1800’s spooked when circumventing a burial mound, and a person in the carriage was killed. Convinced the horse spooked because the mound was haunted, the townspeople insisted that the mound be removed. Though the Episcopal clergyman who owned the land where the mound was located objected, the town prevailed and the remains of 17 people were dug up in 1889 and placed in a mass grave in the southwest corner of Union Cemetery in White Bear Lake. There was not even a marker on the grave until one hundred years later. The Rev. Hauff and I went to search for the place where the grave was located and, after hunting for a while, found it. A plaque on the ground honors the remains of those removed; a bench sits next to it. We prayed for those who were buried, honored them, and mourned the injustice with which they were so disrespectfully moved without consulting or notifying their descendants or tribe.
I’ve been pondering this experience and considering its relation to Advent and Christmas. Advent is the incredible march toward the darkest day of the year, the Winter Solstice, and past it, the birth of light in the tiny spark of the Christ child and the wheel of the year turning again toward spring. Just as in old age, the body sheds its abilities one after another, until at last even breath is released in a last offer of generosity, the march of Advent toward the dark is a slow releasing of one thing after another, all with the unshakable knowing that
“the dark is not an end, but a door. This is the way a new beginning comes. The practice of Advent has always been about helping us absorb the mystery that death, without fail, opens to a new beginning.”
Advent leads to Christmas just as the dark leads to the light. It is true that our culture appears to be moving in the wrong direction—toward more strife, intolerance, defensiveness, and injustice for those most vulnerable among us. Yet even as we march toward what feels like increasingly dark times, small moments of justice and honor and togetherness occur. While we were praying to honor these ancestors at the gravesite, I felt my heart open and expand. I was deeply moved for the honor to pray with my brother Brad Hauff for these, my Indigenous neighbors who are also kin. I am also moved to imagine that that moment could be the beginning of a new chapter in which St. John’s explores regenerative ways to love our Indigenous neighbors. A chapter in which we learn to embody what the Lakota call mitakuye o’yasin, for all my relations—that we are all kin, all related, including all humans and our more than human cousins the trees and skunks and lakes. If you are interested in being part of this chapter in St. John’s life, please let me know.
Advent is about moving through the dark with the unshakable faith that Christmas is coming, the Christ child is born—light and life come again. All creation knows this. How is hopeful expectation arising in you? How are you called to make peace with the death and darkness that come, knowing that life and light follow?
Lisa
