Our Daily Frybread: A Prayer for Native American Heritage Month
Homepage Image Source: Smithsonian
Guest writer Tara J. is a Rust Belt expat, multi-ethnic kid, bulldog aficionado, and pursuer of peace. She makes her home on historic Doeg lands in Northern Virginia with her husband and an ignorant number of houseplants.
—
Our God, Creator, Sustainer.
Made in your image, you called us good.
Remind us this truth when some relatives name savage,
and make us more mascot than mankind.
God of all tongues, so with my grandmothers, we say wado.
Wado for showing us how to take scraps and make beauty.
Scraps of land, into sacred homes.
Scraps of rations, into our daily frybread.
God of perfect justice, we know you hear the cries,
wailing centuries of our missing and murdered sisters.
Help our relatives hear them too, help them weep as we weep.
Grant justice to our sisters and protect generations to come.
God of beautiful contradiction,
you in yourself are three in one, unity in diversity.
Our hearts long for the marriage supper,
when we will place bowls of manoomin and sochan
next to tabbouleh and tamales.
Where our drums, like mighty peals of thunder,
will keep beat for songs of hallelujah.
May we get a taste of this celebration, this unity, in our days.
God of all peace, keep us in a good mind,
so we can love all our relations,
even when loving is hard and hurts are heavy.
Forgive us when the bitterness feels too much
to choke down and our words cease to heal,
cease to be medicine.
God our good Father, may we be known as beloved family,
rather than just mission field, a people to be tilled like soil.
Because our culture is from you, reflects you,
is not incompatible with you.
Lead home all our lost relatives,
removed by policy and prejudice.
Remind them they belong, they are beautiful.
In languages spoken and lost,
we pray this all with the name of Jesus.
Amen.
