This morning, like most mornings, I spent time in prayer, lifting up the names of Indigenous elders and leaders, as well as the names of young ones who are land and water protectors and risk their well-being for the Earth, and her sacred waters.  

As I do every day, I prayed for my Christian kin, the leaders of the  movement to dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery. I lifted up the names of regional leaders and activists — those whose names I know and those whose names I do not yet know. 

I prayed for every one of you, all my relations, by name if I could. Many of you participate in our campaigns for justice for Indigenous peoples, while others accompany us in prayer. 

You are precious. Every one of you is precious.

I write this as we move into the new year. I hear that many feel despair and fear. As the forces of extraction, violence and division assert authority, some feel hopeless, as though there is nothing we can do to oppose these forces.

Yet there is much that we can do.

This morning, Psalm 126 comes to mind. It is a song of lament, acknowledging hard times, and also a song of hope. It begins:

When the Lord restored the fortunes of 

Zion,

we were like those who dream.

Then our mouth was filled with 

laughter,

and our tongue with shouts of joy. 

While this psalm was written about and for the ancient people of Israel, I interpret it here as assurance for a people of God, those who trust in the Creator and seek to follow the Spirit
of Life in the establishment of the
kin-dom of God. 

I love the imagery: We were like those who dream. Although the people of God had experienced hardship, once restored they were filled with laughter and joy that until then they had only dreamed of. The psalm goes on to say,

May those who sow in tears

reap with shouts of joy.

Those who go out weeping,

bearing the seed for sowing,

shall come home with shouts of joy,

carrying their sheaves. 

The psalmist locates joy within the land itself. The restoration of hope means that those who weep as they sow seeds come back singing, with a harvest of joy they carry with them. 

This goes beyond a beautiful metaphor. It acknowledges that carrying sheaves the people planted, reaping the benefit of labor on the land, is joyful. This psalm assures the worker that there will be joy in the just benefit of their labor. 

This is, indeed, good news for the people of the land, and reason for rejoicing.

The Spirit of Life, the Holy One, is still on the Earth. The Creator made us, my relatives, for a time such as this. My elders have told me that we in this generation are the ones our ancestors prayed for. We are ourselves an answer to their prayers, even as we pray for the ones who will come after us. Courage, my siblings.

My elders remind me often that we are eternal beings of spirit. We are not simply consumers, as the dominant narrative may have us believe. We are not helpless. We have life energy, imbued with the force of creation, and we are made in the image of the Creator. 

We are alive now. We have the opportunity to show up for justice now, on behalf of our ancestors and make way for our descendants.

While the dominant narrative may tell us otherwise, we are not alone. We stand together. I stand with you, praying for you. Please pray for each other.

Ultimately, the systems of life will prevail, because there is no force on Earth that can defeat life. No matter how frightening the forces of extraction seem, they are bound to the same reality that we are: mutual dependence.