In 2024, I went on a healing journey, praying with Indigenous communities across the country. I live with multiple sclerosis and daily pain. My friend and colleague asked me, “If you believe in prayer, why don’t you pray for healing?” I had to think about this. 

Prayer is a consistent part of my life. My day begins with giving thanks for my breath, since the Creator provides breath to me throughout the night while I sleep. I also give thanks each morning for the Earth itself, since I depend upon the life-support systems that surround me to provide water, shelter, food, oxygen — everything I need to live. I pray for my family, my community, the survival of my people. I lift petitions to the Creator consistent with Matthew 7, where Jesus explains that our heavenly Father gives good gifts to those who ask him. 

My friend asked me to consider taking a journey across the country to pray for my healing, together with Indigenous people. This felt so audacious. Together we struggle for justice and reconciliation. Each community has its own needs and concerns. Who am I to ask that their prayers would focus on me? 

But my friend was persistent, and I did travel across four states and 3,000 miles to pray with multiple communities across multiple tribes.

My journey began in South Dakota, specifically, in Paha Sapa, the sacred Black Hills. In addition to praying in the high places, folks prayed with me from the Woyatan Lakota Lutheran Church at their Warriors Lodge. They spent all day heating stones for a sweat lodge, then hosted a sacred ceremony where they prayed for my healing. 

Jon, Chris and a dozen others spent a 12-hour day with me that included preparing ceremony for me, then sitting with me in temperatures upwards of 130 degrees F while offering prayers and songs in the Lakota language. 

Sitting in the sweat lodge in complete darkness, I was surrounded by their powerful voices advocating for me. They did this simply because I asked for help. A bond was forged as we sat in the dark and intense heat together.

Many of the young men who prayed with me in 2024 are now putting their bodies in the way of drilling at their most sacred site, Pe’Sla. In 2016, Lakota tribes put land in trust that they had purchased at Pe’Sla to be sure it would be protected and preserved for cultural use. A two-mile buffer zone was put in place around the sacred site, with a memorandum of understanding between the tribes and the National Forest Service. 

In violation of that agreement, at least 10 exploratory drilling sites are within the buffer zone. As I write this at the beginning of May, many of the young men who prayed for me and with me are chaining themselves to the drilling equipment as they sing their prayer songs. 

The drilling is for graphite, an essential material in the batteries that power electric cars. Demand for the minerals needed to produce electric cars threatens the homelands and community health of many Indigenous peoples. Copper is mined at Oak Flat in Arizona, the sacred site of the San Carlos Apache. Lithium is mined at Thacker Pass, sacred lands of the Numu (Northern Paiute) and the Newe (Western Shoshone).

As people of faith, how are we to respond? When the vulnerable are exploited by the mighty, where are we to stand? And how must I respond, when my brothers are calling for allies across the country and across the world to join them as land protectors?

In John 15, Jesus asks his disciples to remain in his love by keeping his commands. He says, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:12-13). 

I hear these words in a new way as I think about my friends in South Dakota. What does it mean to love them as Jesus has loved us? 

Jesus gave his life. These young ­Lakota men are following in the footsteps of Jesus, giving their lives. How am I called to give mine? 

The Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery is discerning how we will respond to the call from our relatives for solidarity. As my younger brothers lay down their lives to protect the sacred lands of their people, I pray the Spirit will give us the courage to learn from their example.