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Over the past year I have been dealing with an unexpected problem in my life. As far as my role as husband, father, pastor, Bible teacher, and student is concerned I am very happy. There are so many people that I love and there are so many people that love me. Life is good! God is good! Family and friends are good! Church is good! Yet, there have been times when I have struggled with anxiety to the point of having short panic attacks. Now before I go any further let's read...
Henry, the lizard, had sat on Tommy’s shoulder for weeks, everywhere except the chow hall. He perched there like royalty, gazing upon his subjects. Everyone loved Henry. Tommy had owned Henry for several months, and I was sure he turned his head slightly when I spoke to him. I may have imagined it, but everyone agreed—out of all the cell lizards, Henry was the smartest. The weather turned cold and wet here, and we didn’t see Henry for a week. When he finally resumed his custo...
Shawondasee, the South Wind was blowing across a meadow in the early spring when he saw a beautiful maiden with golden hair and wrapped in a green blanket. He fell in love with Dandelion at first sight but she was too young and he decided to wait until the next time he blew across the meadow. Then he would declare his love. Spring passed and Summer came and now the beautiful maiden was taller and stronger and her golden hair was more beautiful and the bees swarmed around her...
I wonder what the world would be like if each of us could see the spiritual realm as clearly as we see the physical one. What does the spirit world look like when an airliner crashes? While newscasters and safety experts examine details and determine causes, which they should, I tend to ponder what the spiritual scene would have looked like. Were there angels there to help? What does the spiritual realm look like when a suicide bomber kills people in the Manchester arena or...
Madonna Thunderhawk is a member of the Oohenumpa Band of the Cheyenne River Sioux. Reared within the restrictive environment of the boarding school era (1860-1978), she was an early advocate of the Red Power Movement which was part of the 1950s-1970s era of U.S. civil rights activism and has participated in every Native American struggle of the modern era. She is an original member and spokesperson of the American Indian Movement (AIM, organized in 1968) and a founder and...
Over the past year I have been dealing with an unexpected problem in my life. As far as my role as husband, father, pastor, Bible teacher, and student is concerned, I am very happy. There are so many people that I love and there are so many people that love me. Life is good! God is good! Family and friends are good! Church is good! Yet, there have been times when I have struggled with anxiety to the point of having short panic attacks. Now before I go any further, let's read...
I dropped the envelope into the mailbox. Once a week for nine years I’d sent a letter to my aunt Amelia. Most people thought Amelia was a spinster but she’d been married one day when she was nineteen. Her husband had held up a store the day before their wedding and he was arrested on their wedding night. Amelia had inherited a house from her father and she put her house up to bail him out of jail and he ran away never to be seen again. She’d lost her husband of only a few h...
It was very good to be off Good Friday and Easter Monday so I hit the road to visit my family in a neighboring province. Two hours into my trip, I saw flashing lights coming at me in my rear view mirror. Instantly, I pulled over and waited for the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) officer to come my window. I asked what was wrong and he said that I was driving without my daytime running lights. I had no idea! He checked them for me, using the knob on my dash and confirmed...
I surveyed the land around me as I sat on a flat rock halfway up the grassy hill. The forest across the river below gave way to snowcapped peaks. Bluebirds added vibrant accents to the colorful carpet of wild flowers, and their song mingled with the trill of the meadowlark and harmonized with the whispering breeze as it sang among the pines. The scene was so perfect I cried. I sobbed actually. I didn't know why; we had been in that area many times before for weekend picnics an...
I just wanted to offer my condolences to the families that are going through the tragic losses felt across North America. My love, thoughts and prayers to everyone from Mowachaht/Muchalaht to Ahousaht. And to also to the people of Uclulathaht and the recent loss also in the past couple of days, to my dear friends Vi and Bob Mundy. Please know I am thinking of my extended family and the families of the four tragically taken away from us. And want to offer a few words if I may....
I love to win. I imagine you do too. I don’t meet many who say, “Some of my fondest memories involve being clobbered in checkers and belted at backgammon.” You don’t hear sports fans chanting, “We’re number two! We’re number two!” We prefer to win. For one thing, it’s easier to brag when you win. Baseball great Ted Williams said, “I can’t stand it, I’m so good.” Major League Pitcher Bo Belinski said, “My only regret is that I can’t sit in the stands and watch myself pitch...
A beautiful young Native American girl sat alone deep in prayer about a choice she would have to make that would affect the rest of her life. She was a slender fifteen-year-old with dark eyes like pools of soft love and long shining wavy dark hair glistening in the sunlight. She was a good, quiet, gentle and loving girl who could make the university track if she wanted to. As she sat praying outside the worship center, she saw an eagle. The eagle was high in the sky, far from...
"Hey, Pastor. Can you pray for me? Hey … hey, Pastor! Over here.” My first cell mate had just been released from the hole and back to a regular yard. I had been alone for about 15 minutes. My inner self was praising God and my outer self was singing out loud. Since no one was watching, I decided to praise God in dance. But due to the small cell (and my horrible dancing skills) I knew my praise dance was looking very silly. I didn’t care though, I was happy and full of joy,...
Recently, a woman who had recovered from breast cancer spoke with a group of women and praised her husband saying: "Richard is my blessing!" Then she shared a deeply moving story about him. The woman explained this was a second marriage for both of them; that they were deeply in love; that their blended family worked beautifully. Richard was a widower when they met. His first wife suffered a lengthy, difficult death from cancer. She told her friends that twelve months into...
WILD HOGS Thank you so much for the Bible. It’s so much easier for me to understand. Now as for wild hogs, they’re all over Florida. I’ve been hunting them since a very young age, not much deer meat even though I’ve learned to track them at a young age as well and only hunt one if the elders ask me. I’m Mississippi Choctaw of the Rattlesnake People, representing the Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake and born and raised in Florida and Mississippi. Now I just live on the Choctaw reservation in the Pearl River community where I’ll...
After reading about Joshua Heath and the Anonymous boy (November-December 2016 issue), I need to get this off of my past and hope to help in stopping this from going on again. I was told that this priest had been sent to jail, after he was caught back in 2006. Had I said something back in the 1960s, he may have been stopped. What was done to the boys in the article—the same warnings were given to me and what would happen to my family, within and by the church. Excommunication and ostracizing by the church and the elders w...
Recently I put on skates for the first time in about six years. I played it safe and ended my session without hitting the ice. During my second skate, I managed to trip and landed pretty hard. Thankfully a little boy, about five years old, skated to my rescue. He asked if I needed help. I wasn’t sure what to say, so I asked him if he could teach me how to get up. It was the cutest thing! He purposely fell down and gave me some basic instructions. “You just lift one knee up like this.” Then he simply lifted himself up! It wa...
Two feet of humid air separated us in the six-man shower. I really didn’t know him well, but the look in his eyes indicated he thought he knew me. One thing was for sure, though; I wasn’t interested in striking up a conversation with a stranger, especially while in my birthday suit. “Pastor,” he said. I ignored him for two reasons. First, I greatly dislike being called “Pastor.” Second, I hoped he was talking to someone else. “Pastor Adrian,” and now I knew the naked man was talking to me. “Sup?” I didn’t want to answ...
I've heard a lot of talk about safety and security lately. When it comes to the security of our homeland, I think of the poster that can be found at powwows, rodeos, and Native festivals. It shows a historical photo of Apache warrior Geronimo and his fellow warriors with the text "Homeland Security since 1492". I'm sure if Geronimo were alive today, he'd have a solution. Presidents or prime ministers are not some kind of supreme ruler or king, unless they are dictators or...
There are seven wonders of the world. But for a child there are millions. We were in a mall and my granddaughter couldn’t get over how many people there were. She had to say hi to everyone. And bye too. People were laughing. She pointed up at a mannequin and said, “Bumpa.” Which is me. That’s my name. I saw no resemblance at all. Except that the mannequin was completely bald. Another of my granddaughters loves to say car and plane. “Car, plane, car plane!” I think she wants t...
I often find it difficult to match my space travel with my daily life. I don’t travel as fast as people living on the equator; they ride the earth’s rotation at 1,000 miles an hour, but I still feel the spin sometimes. We orbit the sun every year at 67,000 miles an hour, covering 92,960,000 miles. Our Solar System is part of the Milky Way galaxy, a 100-billion-star city that rotates with other galaxies. Astronomers thought we traveled with 3,000 other galaxies in the Vir...
"Be sober; be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." -First Peter 5:8 (If you don't believe me, then this Scripture nails it!) OK fellow warriors, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that most of you have experienced a hard moment of truth. Was there a time, moment or a conversation that made a huge impact on your way of life; a moment that you'll never forget? When you were married... When you had your child/...
The Kaw Indians never lived far from a river because they knew if the deer and antelope became scarce they could always depend on the river being full of fish. Food was so plentiful, the tribe was healthy, the women were beautiful, and the men were strong. As strong and handsome as all the braves were, Winter Fox was taller and stronger and more handsome than all the rest. His lodge was filled with soft pelts and trade goods and there was no doubt that someday he would be the...
Three years ago last September, 70,000 Vancouverites took to the streets in the “Walk for Reconciliation,” committing to a new relationship between “settlers” and Indigenous Peoples. In October 2016, we took another step on that journey at a Nestooaak gathering called “Walking from Wrongs to Rights.” The event took place at Grandview-Calvary Baptist Church in East Vancouver, BC, located on unceded Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh territory. Indigenous and settler-led workshops which helped to catalyze action and underst...
In the book of Jesus there is a book written by several of our spiritual ancestors from the time of King David. In this book called The Psalms there are people crying out to God to deliver them from depression, sadness, hurt, anger, physical threat, oppositions of all kinds, people mocking and making fun of them and the list goes on and on. As Aboriginal people, we too have endured many of these same feelings because of racism, oppression. Although we are in a society that...
