In the first post in this series – two days ago – I stated that I prefer to say “All life matters” rather than “All lives matter” or “Black lives matter” because I find my choice to be more inclusive. I also prefer it because it is more attuned to the Native American peoples understanding of creation.

One of my favorite resources is A Native American Theology by Clara Sue Kidwell, Homer Noley, and George E. “Tink” Tinker (Orbis Books, Maryknoll, NY – © 2001). The following words are offered early in the volume to assist the reader with the Native American understanding of creation:

When the word [creation] is used in a Christian context, it seems to Indian peoples to connote a heavy dose of reification that is completely lacking in any Indian intellectual tradition, i.e., creation has been historically and continues to be objectified as a thing, something that is quite apart from human beings and to which humans relate from the outside. This objectification is strikingly different from the traditional Indian sense that all of the created world – including every tree and rock – is just as alive and sentient as human beings are, and the further sense that Indian peoples have that we are related to all of these sentient persons in creation (34-35).

I never cease to be amazed at some of the things that I find each day on my Facebook news feed. Even this morning there were two posts that immediately caught my eye – one that I had seen several times and one that was new to me.

The one that I had seen before spoke about a public figure – a musician – who reportedly uttered some extremely rude words once as a description of Native Americans. However, other posts about this same report have also been written stating that the original post is un-true and out of context. Remember – just because you find it on the internet, Facebook, or any other source does not mean that it is true. That is why I decided not to speak further of this matter. It might well be true – but – there is at least an equal chance that it is not true.

The other one, however, set me to writing this post:

Congressional House Chairman Bishop Calls Native American Artifacts “Bull Crap – Not an Antiquity”

WASHINGTON – House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop [R – Utah] last Friday (July 10) dismissed the historical value of Native American artifacts as a basis for establishing national monuments, as first reported by “Greenwire” in a story about President Obama’s designation of three new national monuments: “There is nothing that Obama did today that had anything to do with an antiquity,” Bishop said. “There are criteria for using the act. There is nothing Obama announced that had anything to do with the criteria.”

Ranking Member Raul M Grijalva [D – Arizona] released the following statement in response.

“The natural and cultural resources protected by these designations are, in fact, antiques; species and trees and rocks and cave paintings and beautiful landscapes are all quite old. We want them to remain antique, House Republicans want them to become extinct.”

Grijalva thanked and congratulated Obama earlier today for his designations of Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument in California, Waco Mammoth National Monument in Texas and Basin and Range National Monument in Nevada (http://nativenewsonline.net/currents/).

Incidents like this are just the very tip of the proverbial iceberg. Sadly many of these debates are clearly linked to money and power rather than any consideration of what might be in the best interest of all people – certainly not what might be in the best interest of all creation.

To close this post, I recommend that people visit http://invasionofamerica.ehistory.org. On the opening page of this site you will find an interactive map that will provide the focus for the coming series of posts on this blog. A smaller version of the same map is available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJxrTzfG2bo.

Thank you for visiting this blog and reading this post. You are encouraged to follow this blog and leave comments – joining in a community discussion of these topics. Also, I encourage you to invite others to become part of this community.

Until next time – mitakuye oyasin – these two words will be the topic of my next post on this blog.

On May 6, 2015 I posted a notice that I would no longer be posting on this site – that was then and this is now.

Recently I have seen posts stating that “Black Lives Matter” – I completely agree with this statement, but I also believe that it is too limiting. Others have stated that “All Lives Matter” – again, I completely agree, but still believe that this statement is also too limiting. I prefer “ALL LIFE MATTERS!”

To that end the posts that follow will be dedicated to the loving memory of my grandparents – George Warren Wattenbarger and Edna LaVaughn Sargent Wattenbarger. In a following post I will explain the reason for this and why it is so important for me to dedicate my words to their memory.

I realized that I had to resume writing around the weekend that included July 4, 2015. As usual there were numerous posts that included the following familiar words from the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

NOTE: I have intentionally decided not to change the use of exclusive language utilized by the writers of the document.

These words follow the opening paragraphs of the document:

The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

This is followed by a list of twenty-eight “Facts” – the next to the last one reads as follows (highlighting is mine):

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In my reading, this can only mean that “the merciless Indian Savages” are not included among those that are human, those who are “created equal,” or those who have the “unalienable Rights” to “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” – and they are also not among those who are able to be part of “the consent of the governed.”

Have the lives of the Native American peoples ever mattered?

Are they human?

Are they part of creation?

239 years later these questions remain valid. If all lives matter, or if all life matters where is the outrage on behalf of the Native American peoples? Sadly the silence is palpable!!

God, in your mercy, hear our prayers.

The quotations from the Declaration of Independence were taken from the following website: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html