The Navajo in Oakland

Like so many I too grew up in a conservative Christianity.  Much of the teaching was fear based often implying that our version of Christianity was the right one so don’t listen to any others. Those other versions will lead you astray or worse, damn you to hell forever.  That fear kept me ‘in the fold’ for many years. Any exploration, reaching out beyond our walls, high as they were, was with great trepidation.  Even after leaving home, the angst was downloaded in my head as an internal critical parent always doing surveillance of all the actions or thoughts I entertained.  An experience years back with this internal critic follows. 

Not long after I entered private practice I was seeing several men who had been sexually abused.  I searched for resources to help these men. There was considerable material for women but very little written for men.  In my search and ran across an organization—NOMSVA.  I joined the organization that evening and registered for a conference in Oakland only five weeks away.

In a little over a month I found myself in California with less than a hundred participants and being pretty much the only one from the south-eastern United States.  The fact that I had been sexually abused at eleven helped to fit with many others that attended.  Most attendees had similar experiences in their own background.  Often they too were in a helping profession such as the ministry, social work or counseling. 

It was a good experience.  Workshops were small and impossible to be invisible.  I shared openly about my own life story—the abuse and sexuality (some of which made it into a book written by one of the participants).  As the conference drew to a close on Sunday the schedule said that there would be a Navajo elder speaking that morning and offering a prayer/blessing over those attending.  The internal critic warned me to skip that morning session.  The critic claimed how evil it can be listening to anything that was coming from another cultural point of view. I had a standoff across the “table” in my head with the critic and told the him to chill, I was going to attend.  The critic suggested I would get the same or better inspiration by taking a cup of coffee up one of the beautiful hillsides that surrounded the retreat center and spend the morning communing with nature.  I told ‘him’ I would take my chances with the elder.

The man speaking was Daniel Freeland.  He was a Traditional Navajo Healer (a Navajo Church Roadman) who told us about his earlier life growing up on a reservation.  He shared about Navajo culture and beliefs speaking of the close relationship between Navajos as individuals and the earth.  He demonstrated with his hand by burying his thumb in his palm, wrapping his four fingers around the thumb. The earth (soil), water, wind, and fire--the four fingers--embrace us as these elements of creation.

He then had us—35 or so of us, stand around the walls of the room.  On the table before him there was a candle, a bowl of dirt, a vessel of water, and a feather.  He then began his blessing by touching the earth and water with the feather, waving the feather through the flame, then pointing it at each one of us--each time repeating these steps then individually offering a Navajo blessing.  At the close of each blessing, he added “and I also bless you in the name of Jesus Christ”. 

 It was a powerful.  In my mind, I thought back to the critical parent that feared for my participation that morning.  I would have missed that blessing from a man who knew the same God as me.  As I received this blessing from Daniel I was struck by my own lack of expectation of what might be a move of the Spirit anywhere, everywhere.  That morning depicted a God who shows up in places I have all kinds of excuses for not going. 

Now jump forward a few years to the summer of 1999 and my time in Scottsdale for three weeks of intensive therapy at Psychological Counseling Services.  During the previous months before heading out to the Arizona for the first time my insides were ‘weird’.  I could not say exactly what was going on inside other than to say it was very unsettling partly due to the fact I found it very tough to describe.  I had made some poor decisions.  The usual good boundaries were collapsing between my own emotions and the things I was experiencing outside.  I was feeling way too much—flooding is a term that fit.  Those weeks in Arizona became a watershed in my life.

While in therapy you stay at a hotel of your own choice.  On one hot July night, I returned exhausted to the hotel a little after nine.  At that time of year, Arizona has monsoon rains, the much-needed moisture comes in spectacular storms.  That night the darkening, pinkish, red sky--colored by the dust and sand clouds--was lit up with grand fingers of lightening cutting across the canopy above me from one towering white thunderhead to the other.  The hotel had few guests so I decided to slip on my swim suit and go lay on a chaise by the pool—all alone.  It was still hot but the wind was blowing creating a refreshing ‘breeze’.  As I lay there the rush of air felt great on my skin and hair.  There were occasionally huge drops of rain falling on me with the grit of the sand inside from the clouds.  As I watched that stunning display it came to me what I was experiencing.  

The teaching of the Navajo elder came back to me.  God or creation was embracing me as I lay there on that chaise—the wind, the fire in the sky, the water drops and  the earth within them—surrounded me.  It literally was like creation was reaching down from the heavens and putting its arms around me—‘fingers around the thumb’.  It was an experience that again defied words.  It was sacred.

I realized that without confronting the internal critic years before, I could have missed the brilliance of that evening display in the desert.  It has taught me to be careful with that fearful voice within.  He means well, but often stymies life.  He ends up in a monochrome existence—when life is meant for technicolor.  Now I’ve got the perked-up ears of a canine looking for the ‘lessons of elders’ be they spiritual men from other places and cultures, or be it the simple lessons within everyday life—whether it is in a breeze, the grit of common living, the water than never fails to cleanse, or the fire of the energy that holds every atom of creation together.  

It all speaks.  And I am trying to listen better.

Since those first weeks in Arizona I have spent a number of days exploring the Navajo reservation.  I discovered Tony Hillerman mystery novels which taught me a lot about Navajo culture.  I know that the Great Spirit they speak of is the same God I know. I am grateful for that original Navajo blessing. 

Much of the jewelry I wear is Navajo. The necklace I never take off has stones from the Southwest and a piece of opal—a stone you can look down into—reminding me to look ‘into’ all things and people for what message they have for me.

Each of us lives in the midst of the original blessing from our Creator yet that too often takes a lifetime to realize.   

LISTEN. 

From the Nightway ceremony of the Navahos the chanter closes with:

In Beauty (happily) I walk

With Beauty before me I walk

With Beauty behind me I walk

With Beauty above me I walk

With Beauty all around me I walk

It is finished in Beauty.

This oft-quoted poem, impressive as it is, is far from an adequate translation, for there seems to be no English word to convey the idea of the Navaho concept of "in harmony with".

from the book The Enduring Navaho by Laura Gilpin

symbol on our deck

Similarly, The Breastplate Hymn of St. Patrick:

Christ above us, Christ beneath us, Christ beside us, Christ within us.

Invisible we see you, Christ above us,

With earthly eyes we see above us clouds and sunshine, grey, or bright.

But with the eye of faith, we know you—instinct in the sun ray, speaking in the storm, 

Warming and moving all creation, Christ above us.

Invisible we see you, Christ beneath us, 

With earthly eyes we see beneath us stones and dust and dross—

But with the eye of faith, we know you uphold.  In you all things consist and hang together:

The very atom is light energy, the grass is vibrant, the rocks pulsate.

All is in flux; turn but a stone and an angel moves.  Underneath are the everlasting arms.

Unknowable we know you, Christ beneath us.

Inapprehensible we know you, Christ beside us.

With earthly eyes we see men and women, exuberant or dull, tall or short.

But with the eye of faith, we know you dwell in each.

You are imprisoned in—the dope fiend and the drunk, dark in the dungeon, but you are there.

You released, resplendent, in the loving mother, —the passionate bride, and every sacrificial soul.

Inapprehensible we know you, Christ beside us.

Intangible, we touch you, Christ within us.  

With earthly eyes we see ourselves, dust of the dust, earth of the earth. 

But with the eye of faith, we know ourselves all girt about the eternal stuff, our minds capable of divinity, our bodies groaning, waiting for the revealing, our souls redeemed, renewed. 

Christ above us, beneath us, beside us, within us, what need have we for temples made with hands?