This Sunday night, my friend and "soul-sister" and aboriginal elder Melody McKeller told us some of her story, of being separated at birth from her twin sister (whom the doctor said was mentally retarded but she wasn't), being fostered out to a loving white family and her journey towards reconciling to both her birth family and the land and culture of her ancestors. She said that right now, with a herd of bison and over a hundred acres of land of forest, pasture and seeded field, they are working out a dream of theirs to honor the Creator with restoration. Restoration of the field from chemicals, restoring the bison to the land, and plants, medicinal and natural. She said it's not easy, especially in winter"do we put up drywall in our fixer upper house or feed the bison"? In order to get crop insurance, they need to spread chemical. But they won't, so if its a bad crop (for bison feed), they suck it up (her words not mine!).
Now for most of us, we don't care about all that...well maybe we'll use ecologically ok toliet cleaner, but to go the distance for a planet in crisis? Um, nope....that would mean too much, in fact, it's eccentric! I'll watch the shows of families going "off grid" and see their sad faces in the rain, trying for the hundreth time to roll that log up the hill that they will use for their cabin in the woods. But I'll stay within my comfortable 4 walls with Internet, plumbing, electricity and SuperStore....thanks!
So why do I feel her story, message, life striving for the best for the planet (and people...she works at Selkirk Mental Hospital) is urgent and important? She is not a striving, bitter person, she is open about her weaknesses and dilemmas. She prays, gives, goes into the hard places with a light she barely knows herself that she radiates. I work and live with broken people, that live on land that is pressed by concrete, buildings and thousands of cars and trucks. This land of Winnipeg is broken too. Garbage, dirt, salt, gravel...manicured lawns and flowers, gardens...pull out trees to replace it with other trees and shrubs of our liking. Create hills, parks, where we want them, pollute the river and wonder how to clean it. This was treaty land, a long time ago. Cared for, hunted on, for hundreds of years.
So my musings are trying to connect with this reality. Doesn't Christ want peace both for the human soul and for the land we live and work on? Won't this all be restored one day, both soul, body and earth? Is this important? The Kingdom coming now is Christ's vision to restore all to rightness...not us getting to heaven plunking on harps and chatting to Uncle Bob who made it there too, but earth and heaven, all this creation coming to fullness and peace. No more broken people, no more broken land and extinct animals, fish, birds.
This is why I think this lady needs to challenge more of us duped "Western-gotta-make-money-and-look-out-for-number-one" thinkers. Or Christians that think "Just get 'em saved!" Land doesn't equal money, bison doesn't equal thousands of dollars of meat on the hoof for the specialty restaurants. Our air needs to be clean, rivers flowing free of what we throw into it. Christians especially need to realize the urgency to engage personally in all these issues, hands on, up front. What are we going to do to make things right, running along beside the Creator in his hopeful and all encompassing loving vision of restoration?
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