Respect for all creation

A Gift of Indigenous Spirituality to Us All

A tourist travelling through the forest of Vancouver Island on the way to Tofino went for a walk in the dense forest. He came across a sight he had never seen before – a young tree growing right out of the center of a huge old rotting tree lying flat in the forest. This, he was told, was a nurse tree. That image stirred pleasant emotions within him as it reminded him of the Paschal Mystery – passion, death and resurrection.

The power of that brief brush with nature can help us understand why the Indigenous peoples of the world, living so close to nature for millennia, have a natural respect for all of creation. Theirs has been the culture of the poor – often subsistence living, at the mercy of the elements, and not in control of them as is our modern Western developed society with the gift, and perhaps at times, curse of technology.

A foundational cultural reality that characterizes indigenous spirituality is the World-view of the Sacred, as opposed to the Western World-view of the Scientific that seeks to explain everything logically and rationally. The World-view of the Sacred sees the hand of the Creator, Kihcimanito, in everything, and a living spirit in everything. It points to a profound inter-connectedness of all things within an inter-active spiritual plane of existence. That is why Mary Jane, a teacher with two academic degrees, cannot be convinced that the northern lights are simply electrons and molecules in action, and not the spirits of the dead dancing.

Within this world-view of the sacred lies almost a doctrine of original sanctity, or blessing. The focus is on the potential goodness within each person, rather than on a negative action they might have done. It tends to see each person as one step away from heaven, rather than the opposite. The stress is on respect and encouragement to move into the future, rather than on guilt and punishment for the past. So great is this respect for creation that an elder like Elsie Paul of Edmonton stresses that one should never spit on mother earth, which would be to desecrate her.

For the Indigenous people, relationships are very, very important, even critical. A young couple in one First Nation community I was visiting for the first time asked me a poignant question that touched my heart: “Father, will you be growing old with us?” In a sense, relationships border on the sacred. The first subject of conversation when Indigenous people meet is to whom they are related, and are they related to each other. I suspected, when I was communicating with former AFN chief Phil Fontaine about speaking at our Breaking New Ground Together session as a follow-up to the TRC, that our conversation would centre on his relations in the West, and so it did. There is a very strong sense that we are related to all of creation – very similar to the spirituality of St. Francis and his view of Brother Sun and Sister Moon.

Concomitant with this World-view of the Sacred is the Ethic of Non-interference that is based on respect – a respect that flows from the historical need for the greatest degree of cooperation for survival of the tribe, as well as that foundational belief in the goodness of the other. It is amazing how elders and parents will allow children freedom to explore and experiment with anything and everything – shocking almost, until one reflects that is exactly how God relates to us – never forcing us and always underwhelming us.

Respect for the dead is another strong characteristic of Indigenous life. Every attempt is made to get to the funeral of a loved one, and how painful it is when one cannot. The ability to grieve and mourn the loss of a community member is perhaps one of the things that has helped the Indigenous peoples to survive, as they are affected by what late elder Joe Couture calls collective grief, with so many premature and unnatural, tragic deaths touching every family.

One of the most complete funerals I have ever experienced was that of elder Jimmy Chief of wîhcekaskosîwi-sâkahikan (Onion Lake) who had memories of the Frog Lake Massacre. As soon as news of his death reached the community, a fire was lit outside the hall that would burn until he was buried. Hundreds came to the wake that featured prayer and many speakers. The funeral was a real community event, again with many speakers. At the cemetery, the casket was placed in the grave that was then filled with dirt shoveled in. The dirt was heaped into a mound, then covered with a blanket held in place with stones. Flowers were placed on the blanket, covering every inch of it. Two elders stood between them at the head of the grave to pray together, holding on to the cross and a sapling with ribbons on it. After walking clock-wise around the grave, everyone shook hands with the family as they left the cemetery. Finally, a feast was held at the hall at which prayers were said to release the spirit of the deceased, and everyone was served by oskâpewisak, young male servers. The whole ceremony, from beginning to end, spoke of respect for both life and death.

A final element that speaks of respect for creation is the medicine wheel. The fundamental values at the heart of the medicine wheel are respect for all things and living in harmony with all that is around and within oneself. There is equality, direction, movement, and respect for all the stages of life within the wheel.

In many ways, Indigenous spirituality is a gift to the church, and to our society that now more than ever, is realizing that the World-view of Science is just not enough to satisfy the human spirit.

By Archbishop Emeritus Sylvain Lavoie, OMI