Thanks, Denis! I posted the prayer on my facebook page... we all need to be reminded to pray in such a way! For Christ's sake, and in His name... forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil...

For many years, rumor had it that I was a First Nations person. Having lived among them for the first few years of my life, I came to deeply love and respect the first people of this land. I, however, am not First Nations (although my very dark hair and eyes added to the illusion). I have sometimes wished I were. There are so many things I wish "us whites" could learn from them. I fail to find words to describe the beauty I've known there. I won't try; I would do my most faithful friends injustice. What I do wish to address is the small glimpse into prejudice that I had when the whites around me assumed that I was First Nations. I was, quite frankly, treated with disdain. I recently saw another First Nations lady treated like dirt in a coffee line-up and the next customer was graced with smiles and light-hearted interaction. I was incensed. We can't change the past, but we can take the time to learn from them and at the very least treat every human as though he or she is an equal - because we ARE equal!

Dawn:
Appreciate your kind thoughts. Like you say, we need humility and I find that a hard virtue. It is easier to let hard things fade into the background.

24/7 Mom:
I am so sorry for the disdain you have experienced--an evil that continues in so many ways, sadly.

For 12 years we lived in New Mexico and grew to love the mingled population there: Mexican American, Native American, and white. Diversity is a richness, though just like any marriage is a relationship that must be maintained with tender care. As a staff worker with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship for part of that time I worked with Tony Begay, a Navajo minister in the Christian Reformed Church. I was young, practical, efficient. Time with Tony was always in the moment, relational, unhurried. My conversation was to the point, Tony's was relational and thoughtful. I was the "supervisor" and I learned far more from him than he did from me.

dennis, have you ever read shakespeare's "the tempest" in light of our western nationalistic/celebratory bent? i gain so much perspective from that text in my struggles with nationalism and conquest. to think that shakespeare was writing that in the midst of the "new world" milieu...very provocative.

Choldridge:
No, I have not, and should, and am not surprised Shakespeare could speak so eloquently to one more aspect of human existence. Amazing writer and thinker, with a worldview firmly rooted in reality.

Denis,

I am just now getting to read this entry. I like this prayer. This is a little off topic but the timing of my reading of this is appropriate I think considering the weekend that is approaching - celebration of the Reformation. I have been thinking much about this and I think something like your prayer ought to be prayed in a reformation celebration service as well. While we can praise God for the great truths recovered by the Reformation and the fight against idolatry and the church's abuse of power, we ought also to lament the great cost - the lives lost and arguably the largest schism the church has ever known.

Anonymous:
I agree.
As a man of the Reformation, committed to the great historic orthodox doctrines that the Reformers recovered, I confess I am by conviction a Protestant. And I find heroism in the history of that period. Yet the divisions that resulted, especially over the following centuries as Reformed and Lutheran scholasticism began splitting smaller and smaller hairs is just a tragedy.
I feel gratitude and regret.

Denis,

Oops, I meant to sign my name instead of being just anonymous. Sorry about that. How stalker-esque of me

Nathan C.