"Live in the tension," she said.

I feel compelled to write something, and so I will. Though the story is much longer than what time allots at this moment, I sense that a snippet is needed to share right now at this moment. 

A moment where narratives are held in great anticipation and contradiction:

The Cleveland Indians might win the World Series.

The Standing Rock Sioux tribe (and many others) are gathered together to stop the pipeline being built across the nation.

The election is in one week. 

Anticipation. Unknown. Standstill. And yet so present.

How is it that I'm existing among so many contrasting things? What is this space of in-between where I find myself? Why now?

On Friday I fly out to Kansas for "Would Jesus Eat Frybread?," a conference for Native students navigating the intersection of faith and culture. I don't have words for the depth of what it is to have been invited to be present in such a sacred space of processing, healing, and community. And I know beyond knowing that I will come back on Monday changed. I am open to the process. 

As many of my peers belted "Go Tribe!" today, I found myself packing and preparing for the conference. On Saturday there is a time of cultural sharing. I haven't felt much anxiety about going to the conference, but when I read the email which said to bring a gift for the night of cultural sharing, I felt my throat closing slightly. What does it mean for me, a European American, to bring a cultural gift? What represents where I come from? More importantly than that, what kind of gift could I bring that represents where I come from while acknowledging the injustice of how where I come from came to be?

The truth is I never questioned anything regarding indigenous peoples growing up until I became dear friends with an indigenous person. Well, that's not entirely true--I remember being eight and hearing the story of Thanksgiving and stating that it seemed mean that "Native Americans welcomed us and then gave us gifts and then got killed and pushed off their land." The dissonance never quite settled in me, but I never had answers from teachings to fill my confusion. (Manifest Destiny was the goal after all, right?) When dissonance is too great, you just let things go to make harmony within yourself. 

And so I find myself in an entirely different space over 15 years later, packing to go to a conference for Natives who are seeking harmony in their stories of dissonance, too. The narratives are much different than mine contextually, and yet there is a common thread in that we are all seeking. And I find myself seeking with so many questions of the Church and intercultural trauma and healing. 

This weekend all that I am seeking is to show up and be fully present in each and every moment as it unravels in story. 

But in the midst of all of this reflection I am still unsure of what gift to bring. Nothing I can think of seems appropriate, and so I ask the one who invited me for advice. He shares much, but what I take away is this: "Bring something of great value." And all at once I know in my being what to offer, and it is something of great value.   

Encircled around the rearview mirror of my car is a lei. It was given to me by my friend (and former Mission Year teammate from Hawai'i) as I left O'ahu during my visit in June. The lei has been commercialized and caricatured, but it is a sign of friendship, honor, greeting, and celebration. In the case of this lei, it was a gift of goodbye as I boarded the plane for the long flight back to Ohio. During the plane ride the flowers slowly died, and when I got back I chose to hang the strand of dried flowers on my rearview mirror, not quite sure what to do with it, but it's symbolism being too rich to simply discard. 

It is relationship that causes us to care, and relationship that causes us to change. Listening to one another's stories opens us to viewing the world differently, and challenging where we came from, what we believe, and how we view things. In this case, the story of me beginning to understand myself as a colonizer through the eyes of the colonized has been a story of many tears, restless nights, and inability to move forward during a year in Philadelphia and beyond. Yet I am convinced that the way forward is continuing to listen, repent, and partnering as invited into the work of intercultural healing.  

I'm bringing a lei not because I'm Hawaiian, but because it was a person from Hawai'i who embodied the missing narrative that I sought to hear when I was eight and I said "I don't think this was fair." I'm bringing a lei to acknowledge that through this friendship I was invited into healing within myself as a colonizer, and that I am committed to continue the hard work of repentance and healing. I'm bringing a lei because the reasons I care so much for Natives on the mainland is because of the influence of Natives from another land. To me the two are intertwined. I'm bringing a lei because it symbolizes friendship and honor which was given to me, and now I seek to give to others, a commitment to continually sow what has been sown in me as I relate to and am in partnership with indigenous peoples. 

I share all of this to say that the Cleveland Indians might win the World Series tonight, and I'm bringing a lei as a gift to a conference in Kansas for Native students the weekend before the election between Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump. 

Anticipation. Unknown. Standstill. And yet so present.