I recently returned from a mission trip to Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Another post will be written to tell more of that story. While there I had the opportunity to share in a ‘Sweat Lodge’ ceremony with Chief Duane Hollow Horn Bear. This song was written in the common room of the ‘Tree of Life’ visitors lodging area where we stayed. I wrote it the evening of the ceremony. The words flowed as they often do, coming so easily and rapidly to mind that I have to get them all down and then return to actually read what I have written to get the full impact of the story. I originally titled it ‘Lakota Lament’ but then realized that this was my lament for them and their loss, not their lament at all.
I leaned forward to listen
Trying to catch every word
That Chief Hollow Horn Bear had to say
He spoke both in English
And his native Lakota
He spoke of his people and their spiritual ways
What have we done
To indigenous ones
We encountered as we spread through this land?
How can we repair
What is no longer there?
There’s only one answer ‘Leave it all in God’s hands’
He spoke of the creation
Of the world we live in (long ago?)
Of the cleansings that God had to do
He quietly told us
Of the Buffalo nation
Of their efforts to help Lakota make it through
What have we done
To indigenous ones
We encountered as we spread through this land?
How can we repair
What is no longer there?
There’s only one answer ‘Leave it all in God’s hands’
He spoke of his people
Of the hardships they faced
Unemployment, despair, suicide
The tendency of
The young to turn from
The ways of the Elders, teachings of the tribe
What have we done
To indigenous ones
We encountered as we spread through this land?
How can we repair
What is no longer there?
There’s only one answer ‘Leave it all in God’s hands’
We shared in the Sweat Lodge
Heard his fears and his pain
Felt his longing to change what was now
In the heat and the dark
Heard his prayers in Lakota
What to do? What to change? Asking ‘How?’
What have we done
To indigenous ones
We encountered as we spread through this land?
How can we repair
What is no longer there?
There’s only one answer ‘Leave it all in God’s hands’
I came away
With the realization
That you and I must be God’s hands
To heal and recover
From what we’ve done to each other
To demonstrate God’s love to our fellow man
What have we done
To indigenous ones
We encountered as we spread through this land?
How can we repair
What is no longer there?
There’s only one answer ‘Leave it all in God’s hands’
Copyright October 2011 John Lage, Jr. All Rights Reserved.
