11\29\24 - Storebought or Homemade?

(The ideas and opinions expressed within these specific posts are meant to be self-reflective of my theological praxis and are in no way or form intended to be prescriptive, doctrinal, or persuasive. )

I must confess that the capstone project for finishing this degree has opened or revealed a great deal of deep and festering wounds in my mind and my spirit.

In my first master's capstone almost a decade ago, I tried to answer why Native Americans were underrepresented in higher education. While I learned a lot of history, including how systems and institutions have made it extremely difficult for Indians to go to school, it also confirmed many assumptions from my experience.

While some of the mechanical aspects (money, resources, aptitude) were fairly obvious, the social and political issues surrounding that topic were disheartening. This included attitudes within Native communities toward education as a whole- including distrust of institutions, schools, and colleges, increasing the assimilation process and, ultimately, the result of alienating those Natives with an advanced or ‘higher’ education from their tribal communities.

Even while I did the academic work of uncovering the why, I held the gnawing feeling that I contributed to the problem by seeking the answer.

My theological education did not and does not feel any different. In this capstone, I’ve spent three months seeking the answers to two questions: “Why aren’t more Native philosophers or theologians?” and “Why do Native Christians believe and behave and understand this faith the way we do?”.

The answers I’ve found don’t surprise me- they are, in many ways, the same ones I found in my previous work- just in another font.

We inherit many things from our ancestors, including our perspectives of the world and how life and community ought to “be”.

For 8 years, I’ve been consistently horrified by many of the things I’ve learned and traumatized by how these insights are revealed to me. I’ve experienced, seen, heard, felt, and tasted the effects of an inherited faith- and most of them are not positive experiences. I’ve critiqued institutions, shared my worries, and offered suggestions; in doing so, I find the rift within myself increasing. I’ve done this while I lived and worked in the Academy and I continue to do this as I serve within the Church.

It makes no difference.

Many of these concepts or ideas surrounding faith, spirituality, education, and religion, to me, aren’t simply or only intellectual foods for thought (as they are commonly shared in the Seminary, the Academy, and the Church) but recipes to meals offered wholesale and force-fed from folks without a palate to people who, frankly, aren’t hungry.

To explain it another way, I’ve lived on beans and potatoes my entire life, yet I’ve spent half of my life learning cuts of steak and the best ways to prepare them.

I’ve yet to acquire the taste, want, or need for a steak. Some folks love them though; and I can both teach and make a great steak.

I’m grateful for that.

Although, in my years as a scholar (whatever that means) I’ve learned to appreciate the differences between storebought and homemade. And to that end, even homemade food is not truly fully appreciated.

Some folks say, “Everyone makes their beans different,” and no one says a word. We delight in sharing subpar food, even if it’s burnt or unseasoned.

Yet, at the same time, I hear: “Everybody knows who can make frybread and who can’t”; often, folks know who should stay out of the kitchen. Some staple meals, like frybread, require more than technique to create. Anyone who has made frybread knows that it has to feel, taste, and look “right”, even if the “right” way the dish is prepared or served is entirely subjective and a personal preference.

In this analogy, my approach to education and life as a scholar leaves me constantly choosing storebought or homemade.

 I am constantly dissatisfied or ashamed of how I cook my beans, prepare a steak, or shape my frybread.

I wonder, as I often am compelled to say during that Great Thanksgiving if I could ever be one who could “taste and see that the Lord is good”?

May I ever be so blessed, as is written in that great 34th Psalter, that I may find refuge in my Creator?

In other words, (as the kids say) am I cooking, or is it I that is truly cooked?