I will celebrate his birth. Let me tell you why ... As a child, I was always curious as to why my grandmother, who lived behind the Holy Cross Church in Pine Ridge, worked for the Church. I finally got up the nerve to ask her. The following is her story. Her story starts back in the days of the late 1800s, when the US Calvary rounded up Lakotas, Dakotas, and Nakotas and forced them onto reservations, outlawed all the ceremonies, and forced Christianity on them. Me: Grandma, how did you start going to church? Grandma: Well, when we were first on the Pine Ridge Reservation, there were a lot of priests and nuns. They were from all the different churches being set up across the reservation. My mother and father listened to the priest talk about a man named Jesus. The stories about him mirrored our way of life. Me: What do you mean? Grandma: This man Jesus was a spiritual leader. He loved everyone, he shared food with everyone, he helped everyone, he healed people, and he even raised someone from the dead. All the elders heard his story. They seen Jesus as a relative, a healer, a medicine man. Jesus never turned anyone away. Just like us. My mother and father never turned anyone away. They fed them if they were hungry, they gave them a place to sleep if the were tired, they helped them if they were sick. Jesus values are the same as the values our Lakota ancestors believed in. Me: Wow! Grandma: That is why the Lakota Oyate embraced Christianity. Me: Grandma, did you go to ceremonies? Grandma: I can tell you this, a man would ride horseback from house to house. He always had a bowl and a bag of beans, or rice. He would go to each house, get off his horse and fill the bowl. Then, he would be welcomed into the house. He was the messenger, that would let the people know when their would be a ceremony. Me: Were you scared? Grandma: No. There was great care in going, and we werent afraid. Me: Wow! Grandma: The priest told my parents how Jesus gathered up his disciples and prayed in the dark, and how little sparks of light lit up in the darkness as they prayed. This was the most important reason my parents agreed to become members of the Episcopal Church. So, the moral of this story is how Jesus held a ceremony with his disciples, and through the word of the Bible, Jesus was welcomed.
Posted on: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 19:02:25 +0000