Whirling Mountain

The following are a few of my experiences, not data for or against any belief system. I do not delude myself by believing my story is presenting evidence. I was born and raised in the 1960's at Immanuel Mission in NE Arizona. A Plymouth Brethren mission to the Navajo People. I returned with my family as an adult and worked there for five years, continuing the promotion of white Jesus colonialism. I’m inspired to make a try at telling some of my story because I have told it to very few people. I’ve “outed” myself to my wife, to two of my brothers and to my good friend, and a therapist, but that’s it. The rest of my family know little of this. When I’ve tried to bring it up but they respond with conventional christian comments such as my mother did when I was a child: “you just aren’t right with the Lord. You just want to sin. You were never a True Christiantm.” Or, more often,  they are silent and expect me to be as well. At age seven I was admitted to the Denver Children’s Hospi...

My dinétah friends had me thinking this morning about what has become a favorite prayer or affirmation for me. It comes from the Night Way Chant (Yéíbichei). It is “Hóózhó naashá.” Usually translated “In beauty I walk,” it can also have the connotation of harmony. As a Jazz musician, I know that harmony is the most important element in a song. The jazz musician uses the melody as a starting point to explore harmony. I have value in this world. In fact the experience of life would be less beautiful with out the harmony I add. It allows for and celebrates differences. It doesn’t judge. Naashá is also used to describe where one comes from. In Navajo we aren’t “from” somewhere, we “walk around” somewhere. So I was raised Da’akózh taa, among the greaswood. In answer to the question “where do you live?” I would say “Da’akózh taa déé naashá.” I am from (walk around) among the greasewood. Hóózhó can also mean “care,” as in take care, be care-ful. “I walk care-fully.” So the prayer can trans...

Haash yinílyé, ashkii? What are you called, little boy? As a young boy on the rez, I was called Scat. I don’t know where I got that name. It was sneered out with a snap usually with the final T dropped. I hated that name. Only the Navajo kids called me that though they probably heard it from one of the staff members. They also called me Tsíí gałagai. White hair. Very white hair, as in an old person nearing death white hair. This one was also spat out with venom. Usually it was Clicker and Freeman who called me this. Freeman should have known better, being an outsider as well. Haash yinílyé, shi cheii? What are you called grown man? Shi ei Hostiin nake’sinilí na ádin yinishyé. When I left the rez for the penultimate time, my childhood friends Anita, and Herman, and Laman, and Jimmy, gave me a Navajo name. It wasn’t planned. We were standing around kicking the dirt, waiting for me to get into the UHaul truck and make the long drive to Raton, NM. Herman said We should call you Hostiin...

Ni’ísh diné? Uh, no. I’m a skinny white kid. I can see why you’d Make that mistake, though. Being as Far away from anything bilagáana as you can get. Fifteen miles off the highway. Ninety miles from the grocery store, hospital, movie theater, cool green grass. Far away, too, from anyone that looks remotely like me. Except the Two albino boys at the top of Toh Ádin. Hágósha’? Jó naashá. I’m just wandering around. Just trying to make sense of this. I was Born here. Just a few miles away in the corner room of a Trading post. Tsé Nitsaa Deezʼáhí, Rock that extends. Delivered by a Lutheran Missionary doctor that when I was older I Thought looked like a german soldier in Pa’s American Heritage WWII book. Haa dóoneé nílí? Well I guess you could say born of Sheldrake. Born for Staley. Duck clan; Blacksmith clan. But we don’t really think that way. I might as well have No people. My classmate once asked me where I was from. Here, I said. But where are your people? Kansas, Michigan, Canada, En...

“He’s off the deep end” was about the worst thing Ma could say about someone. For years I thought I was safe in the shallows. Seemed to have my feet firmly planted. Recited the rules, Religiously. “Never turn your back on the sea,” “Know the conditions.” “Off the deep end you are suddenly mid-way in the food chain.” I would always manage to get caught out in the deep end though. (And shouted at from the shore). Off the deep end is terrifying. If you put on your mask and look down the Depth of the darkness reaches for you, and You find your self trying to walk on water. Tiger sharks and barracuda lurk just out of sight, I swear. But if you turn over and shade your eyes, give up control, You rock gently as a hammock in a breeze. Drift here and there as the current moves. And came the day when I admitted to myself off the deep end was where I wanted to stay. What they say is true: many are lost off the deep end. And It will ultimately get you. What they don’t tell you is that most are ...

This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, resist tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men—go freely with powerful uneducated persons, and with the young, and with the mothers of families—re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book, and dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem, and have the richest fluency, not only in its words, but in the silent lines of its lips and face, and between the lashes of your eyes, and in every motion and joint of your body.

S sent me this link this morning. A long read, but worth scanning, by a favorite author, researcher, and University of Houston professor, Brené Brown. A quote then a long personal note: “‘I can’t tell you how many people have stories of being in a classroom or with a parent who said, ‘This doesn’t look like anything’ and literally having their art ripped up,’” she says.But that isn’t the whole story. Even more of Brown’s interviewees, about 90%, recalled adults who helped them see their value. “I can’t tell you the number of teachers and parents who’ve taped those pieces back together and said, ‘This is art. You have a unique lens. It belongs to no one else,’” Brown says.” In my house growing up, I don’t remember any overt encouragement in creativity. Like Brown’s childhood home, everyone was just creative. Ma made amazing clothes and toys from na’tnii (used clothing from missionary barrels). She made appetizing meals (read, beans), from very limited resources. Later in her life she ...

In my efforts to deconstruct my evangelical upbringing I have often been aware that my rejection of christianity hasn’t been as logical and well reasoned as those of others that have helped me along the way. What has convinced me of the untruth of Christianity, from my first objections as a child, until now, has been experiencing, first hand, the egregious behaviours of christians. I am now learning to reason, and reason supports my understanding of this process, but I didn’t start there.  My deconstruction or deconversion has been helped immeasurably by the online presence of Jim Pfaff, Suzi and Cal Baumann, Matt Dillahunty and others. Dillahunty is a former Southern Baptist seminarian who began to question his Christian beliefs when a non-religious flat-mate responded to his proselytising attempts by continually asking “how do you know that?”  On a recent show on Dillahunty’s YouTube channel, The Line,  a caller suggested to the hosts that Donald Trump aligns with Christian values ...

At the north end of the Chuska range, on the border of Arizona and New Mexico, connected to Lukachukai mountain by high mesas and slick rock is a mountain named (on maps) Carrizo. The Navajo, lacking a high enough vantage point to see that it is a circular formation, did notice that it looked the same on all four sides. They named it Dziłnáoziłii, because it seems to whirl around to keep an eye on the passersby.