Candee Calling… Oct. 7

Dear Friends,

I apologize for not writing every week but until Pastor Mike Peterson, our interim pastor arrives on November 7th , that’s how things are going to go! Different responsibilities as a temporary, three-quarter time, solo pastor mean that I am not able to do everything as I once did. Since the beginning of the pandemic and changes in staffing, we’ve all had to flex and learn to “go with the flow!” So, I appreciate your patience and grace in these “in between” times.

As I write on Wednesday morning, I’m looking forward to hearing Jim Bear Jacobs speak this evening. He is a member of the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican Nation, an American Indian tribe located in central Wisconsin. Mr. Jacobs holds many titles including, the present Director of Community Engagement and Racial Justice for the Minnesota Council of Churches and creator and director of “Healing Minnesota Stories” – a program dedicated to ensuring that the Native American voice is heard in areas where it has long been ignored. His talk coincides with the beginning of a 225-day period of remembering the 215+ children who died in Indian Boarding Schools, a request that comes to us from our St. Paul Area Synod. The following appeared on their website this week:

“In response to the request of the American Indian Alaska Native Lutheran Association and our Bishop Patricia Lull, we join the Saint Paul Area Synod in 225 days of remembering the children who have died in Indian Boarding Schools. We pray for the communities who suffered the loss of their children. Their relatives are now receiving their remains with grief and honor for burial in their homelands. We repent of the role of the Christian churches who supported the taking of the children to the schools and have remained ignorant of the harm and trauma caused over all this time. We commit to 225 days of remembering the children in this congregation, in worship and in learning more to restore loving relationships and work together toward God’s vision of beloved community between American Indian Alaska Native relatives and non-Native relatives, who are all God’s people.”

The following acknowledgment was included:

We acknowledge that the land on which we reside, worship and gather was first the home of the Dakota and Ojibwe (Chippewa) people. Minnesota means “sky-tinted water” in the Dakota language. We honor the First Nation people who continue to live and work here as part of this community.

Today we remember the children who were taken from their families, especially those who died in Native Boarding Schools, far away from home, in the United State and Canada.

From now through May 14, 2022, there will be prayers, litany, and resources to help us remember, repent, and resolve to live in equitable partnership with neighbors of Native identity. In addition, the Visual Arts Team will designate an area and/or create a banner -orange in color, the color of a t-shirt taken from a 6-year-old survivor, stripped of her indigenous identity - to aid us in our remembering and in our praying. I leave you with this prayer from Rev. Mark MacDonald, National Indigenous Anglican Archbishop, given on September 30, 2019, at the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation ceremony honoring all children who did not return home from the Residential Schools:

Almighty God, we remember before you all of the children – our dear relatives – who did not return home from the Residential Schools.

May you remember their suffering and pain.

May you grant them rest in the Land of Peace.

May you surround them with beautiful and sacred love and joy.

We pray to you also for ourselves and our children.

At a time like this we remember we need your Spirit so very much.

We pray to you, your Spirit prays through us, in the Name of Jesus,

Who suffered with us but raised us and will raise us with our departed loved ones.

Amen.

Peace,

Pastor Candee