This is an excerpt from the book I've been reading called Voices In The Stones: Life Lessons from the Native Way by Kent Nerburn. 

I have found this to be a wonderful book.  Everyone who thinks about life in America from the way it used to be in the beginning, to the way it is now (all screwed up) will enjoy this book, I guarantee it.  Please enjoy this quoted material as there is a lesson to be learned here.  But no one in THIS AMERICA, which we have created out of sheer greed and recklessness, will likely understand.  Those at *the top* never see the wisdom of looking backwards.  I, on the other hand, have always held great respect for the Native Americans and their so-called "primitive ways", even when they were still called indians.

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From the Elders to the youngsters:

"Your elders have taught you the ways and ceremonies passed down from your ancestors and shown you how to live in humble awareness of the forces that pervade all of creation. But these new people, with their new power and new ways, have brought a different understanding of the Creator.

They claim a new truth - one that was not given to you - and a new understanding of what the Creator wants.

They tell you it is written in a book that only they have, and it has rules for life that carry dark sanctions if they are not followed.  It tells you of a world you did not know, where after death you go either to be with the Creator or to a place of eternal fire where you burn without mercy for all time to come.  It tells of a god-man named Jesus who lived far away in a place unknown to you and whose life and death carry the key to leading you to the Creator or sending you to the place of endless fire.  This way is foreign to you.  You are curious, but wary, and troubled by the fear it puts into your heart.  Yet the powers of the new people speak of favor in the eyes of the Creator, so you cannot dismiss what they have to say.

These new people have a strange way of living, where all is divided into "mine" and "yours".  They begin taking your land, telling you that you must leave the place where the Creator put you and change the way you live.  They do not understand your families, your way of sharing, your relationship to the Creator, your way of raising children and honoring the elders, or what constitutes the right conduct of life.

They cannot understand that silence before speaking is the sign of a composed and reflective mind, that interrupting another is an act of deepest disrespect, that children are to be raised in a certain way and elder are to be treated in a certain manner, and that the correct ceremonies must be performed to keep your life and the earth in balance.  They do not see the world as a place to be listened to and observed; where the dead are present to you at all times; where the powers of the animals, the trees, the rivers, the clouds can be granted or withheld; where everything is a message, everything is a lesson, everything is a story set down by the hand of the Creator, not to be used or abused, mastered or dominated, but to be understood and honored in the prescribed way.

You try to avoid these people or accommodate them, but your heart is troubled.

They are driving you from your homes, your way of living, your way of honoring the Creator.  They take from you whatever they want and insist that their way should govern all your dealings with them. They do not use their language to speak from a pure and clear heart, but to twist the truth and get their own way."

(to be continued in the next post)