Rock The Native Vote

Another dang month has flown by me. 2008 seems to be going so quickly but I am happy to report that I have not been in another car accident. So yea me!

I have been caught up in the presidential voting craze thing. I have not previously been all that interested in presidential elections, mostly because I am more of a conspiracy theorist who is convinced that presidential elections are rigged and so forth. Though lately I am starting to worry that the presidential elections are not rigged and we, the American public, really did elect G W Bush for two terms.

I voted for the first time in a presidential election in 2004. I should mention that I always register to vote and I believe in the voting process, just not during the presidential elections. Having made that clear, when a colleague of mine asked if I would be interested in being a part of an organization called Rock The Native Vote, modeled after MTV's Rock The Vote, I agreed mostly because I wanted to support my colleague but as I sat at the first meeting I came to a deeper understanding of what the group wanted to accomplish which was more than just registering people to vote.

The group encourages Native people to register to vote, to get out and vote, as well as encourages them to take a more active part in the whole political process. Native people are routinely lost and forgotten in American politics and RTNV is trying to tell them that this can be remedied. That Native folks have a voice, that they can use that voice and that they will be heard. Which in itself is a awesome undertaking but the part that excites me is that, in this instance, it is the church that is behind this group. The Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference of the United Methodist Church began this whole project back in 2003. The church, who has historically told Native people that they are not worth listening to, is now the one who is telling Native people that they are indeed worth listening to.

I have long struggled and searched for some understanding of forgiveness ever since reading Homer Noley's First White Frost and since my Church history classes at Drew. I found that I could not forgive the church for its treatment of Native folks and yet I understood that I was also the church. I argued with God and said I would not go back to Oklahoma and preach forgiveness, especially if I myself could not forgive and I refused to forgive.

But I knew I wasn't right. I felt it in my heart everytime I said I refused to forgive. I just couldn't find the right way to go. When I took that church in Clinton, the children's church, I was determined that those kids would learn of and experience God's love and mercy and of a church that cherished them. I would not tell them that they were wrong or that the cultural part of their lives was a sin in God's or the church's eyes. I was determined to not repeat mistakes made by the early church.

Strangely, a year later, I have found it easier to let go of that sick feeling, the anger I felt thinking of the church's past. Now I consider what I am doing with the Cheynne/Arapaho kids in Clinton a way of undoing the past and redirecting the future. For me, those kids, and the church.

In my mind, Rock The Native Vote is also trying to undo the past and redirect the future of Native people. Yet I hesitate to say that I have forgiven because everything I know on forgiving doesn't seem to address these kinds of issues and perhaps the word is inadequte to cover what I feel we are trying to do in my conference but then again maybe the word has never been truly explored to its full extent.

I can't always say it and mean it but after working in Clinton and with RTNV, I feel good saying that I belong to the church. It actually makes me feel warm and fuzzy...

www.Rockthenativevote.org