As the timeline of my vision continues to play out, I wouldn’t be surprised if the next episode was just around the corner – the emergence of the police-state, and restrictions on interstate travel. If that were to happen, the effect would be much greater than most people realize. Practical considerations aside, American as a nation developed around the concept of open-space and room for everybody; freedom to go where you wanted, when you wanted, with no one to tell you otherwise And in that sense, there has never been a place quite like it. Yet, this is more than simply a phenomenon coincidental with the development of the motorized vehicle and its consequent untold miles of freeways and secondary roads, it extends well back to this continent’s prehistory as well. The archeological record is clear that at one time their were earlier civilizations, themselves part of a vast, interconnected trading empire, which spanned the width and breadth of the Americas. This ancient panorama, although already in decline, was only later given new life through the introduction and domestication of the horse. This in itself says something about the people who lived here before, the country’s vast expanses and its ability to stir the imagination of its inhabitants, who were themselves driven by curiosity to cross the next river or ridge, simply to see what was on the other side.
Explorers, entrepreneurs all, even today, an ebb-and-flow of human enterprise, which if thwart would be like trying to stem the tide. If we would but recall we should admit to some familiarity with that, as we were all held hostage during the COVID crack-down. Some people became neurotic, many still are! The quarantine did more than simply serve to quell disease transmission, it induced a kind of psychosis which has had lasting consequence. Consider then, if the roads were devoid on cars. It wouldn’t take long for weeds to sprout in the pavement. A semaphore for seed from the distant past, which has lain dormant in the soil for generations, it would sprout in due course, and like the proverbial mustard tree, grow to provide shelter and nourishment for… “Indians,” Red or White, who would “…make the road by walking,” (Klein 2019). For this purpose they were created, and for this purpose they have been called – “…from the west to the east, from the Arctic to Tierra de Fuego; one Native nation, walking in a sacred way, flying but one flag: a people who will speak on My behalf – with a voice like Thunder!” (Chalkyitsik, Alaska 1998)
Although it’s no secret to many that the ship-of-state has slipped its moorings and sailed, wisdom would dictate that we return to port and refit. Yet we’d be remiss in doing so if our First Nation’s people weren’t by our side, even as they were in the very beginning, helping us form The Constitution. And, modeled as it was after the “Haudenosaunee” or Iroquois “Great Law of Peace,” it became the inviolable standard, not only for the newly-formed nation, but American Indians alike. One which they were quick to defend, with word or weapon. A posture that didn’t go unnoticed, as General Washington became not only the first to acknowledge the fact, but honor it, by formally inducting the American Indian into the rank and file of The Continental Army. Not only did his action serve as the means whereby the “warriors code” of Indian America was embedded within the US Military, but it set a very high-bar. America was to become not only representative of our diversity, but our combined strength, through unity of purpose and combined will.
CoupStick Chaplain 