Anglican Indigenous Sacred Circle 2000
Walking a New Vision

When Mervyn Wolfleg was a small child, living on a reserve in western Canada, he was taken deathly ill. His parents, in accordance with their native cultural practice, called on the medicine woman to come and help. "I'll come", she promised, "but right away I want you to put a large rock in the oven so it will be very, very hot by the time I get there." When the healer arrived, she went straight to the stove and took the stone from the oven. Mervyn recalls thinking "Oh, oh! What's she going to do with that?" With the stone in her bare hands, she came to the side of Mervyn's bed and held it above his chest. "If she puts that on me, it'll burn a hole in me", he said to himself. The medicine woman then put her tongue on the hot stone, licked it and blew across the top of it. She lowered it and laid it on Mervyn's chest. He remembers that it didn't bother him at all, and in a couple more days, he was up and running like the young boy he was. Later in his childhood, after Mervyn Wolfleg had been moved into a residential school, he told his story of the medicine woman to one of the missionaries. "That was magic; it was not from GOD", he was told. To which Mervyn responded "Well then, if it wasn't GOD, it was a pretty good imitation."

With this story, the Rev. Mervyn Wolfleg, from Siksika, Alberta, rector of St. Barnabas parish on the T'suu T''ina reserve in the Diocese of Calgary opened his homily in which he outlined his beliefs and views concerning the often misunderstood concept of cultural abuse. He didn't ask us to accept the story as anything other than an illustration of how the beliefs of one people can be used against their spiritual growth when they might just as easily be used as support. As an Anglican Council of Indigenous Peoples (ACIP) partner to the Council of General Synod, Mervyn visited Fredericton last May when the council held their regular meetings here. I first met him at that time, but got to know him much better at the fourth ACIP conference, 'Walking a New Vision', in Port Elgin Ontario this summer.

In February of this year, I was selected to be one of ten non-native participants at the event, the intention being to strengthen and expand Anglican relationships between native and non-Aboriginal church members. Coming from a diocese with little in the way of contemporary interaction between the native communities and the Anglican diocese, it promised to be a time of learning and challenge and he made considerable efforts to prepare himself before the event. One of the papers I read before I left described the new enlightenment of native relations by telling of how the old Woody Guthrie song, 'This Land is Your Land' had fallen out of favour because it purported to celebrate the theft of North America by the white settlers. That was something I found difficult; to me, Woody had always been a songwriter who believed in all people, including natives. But I prepared myself to confront that level of thinking, and to challenge myself whenever necessary. I went to the Sacred Circle expecting to discover traditional native spirituality in an Anglican setting. What I found were Anglicans just like me. They just came from a different background, that's all.

The Sacred Circle was a comfortable place for me, and I was very happy to meet new friends in the Anglican church, but there was one major difference which has yet to be played out in my thinking. I was part of a circle of twenty people and I was the non-native partner. We met on about six occasions for two hours each time. The concept of the 'circle' is one which I find frustrating, coming from a white, waspish culture. I understand it well enough, but it's still foreign enough to take some time to get used to. In a circle, issues are discussed by each person in sequence. There is a facilitator, and everyone is asked to speak on the topic in whatever way is appropriate, even if that means silence. In talking circles, a time limit is agreed upon beforehand, but in some healing circles, or at times of great importance, there may be no time limit. A circle maintains its own discipline with the use of a token. In some cases, a feather is used, or a symbolic piece of wood. It is always a natural item, and for my circle, it was a small stone. When the ACIP conference was over, the circle facilitator presented the stone to me as a reminder of the new bond that had been established.

The Anglican Council of Indigenous Peoples succeeded the former Council of Native Ministries, as the representative body for all native Anglicans in Canada. This summer's Sacred Circle was its fourth national convocation. The previous three were in 1988, 1993, and 1997, and were marked by the revelation of residential school abuses. This event was notable because it witnessed a determination to take the next step in the journey of native Anglicans. As the title implies, and as Mervyn Wolfleg said, "It's time to stop the talk and walk the walk." That walk is a walk towards full, but self-determined participation by native members in the Anglican Church of Canada. In 1994, ACIP developed a Covenant which asks the rest of the church to walk with them towards this inclusive involvement. The Covenant has been accepted by General Synod, and by a number of individual dioceses and even parishes. It asks nothing more, nor nothing less than complete support and honest partnership for native Anglicans as they seek their role in our church. 17 of the 30 Canadian dioceses have already established support mechanisms.

One of the most moving things that happened at the Circle was the tree-planting ceremony, at which participants from every corner of the country added soil and water they brought with them. Being only one of two Maritimers and the only person from New Brunswick, it was something truly special to be able to be a part of something so meaningful. The tree was blessed with prayers from the four directions and how that made me feel as part of a very important whole. There were a number of other special occasions that are now great memories of the event. There were morning and evening prayer services each day, and an opening and closing Eucharist. All were memorable because of how alike they were to the services I am accustomed to. Only the Eucharists had any special native elements such as sweet-grass, and prayers in native languages. The healing service was a time of great devotion, and the 'fashion show' and square dance were essential to building the comfortable friendships I now enjoy.

It was equally meaningful to meet Rev. Mary Battaja, a native priest from our national twin - the Diocese of Yukon. Mary serves in the Parish of St. Simon's, Whitehorse, and we spent a hour or so talking over lunch. Yukon and Fredericton have enjoyed a companion connection for a number of years and we can learn a lot from them concerning the life of a native Anglican church. Bishop Terry Buckle says of the special relationship his native and non-native family have, "We continue to be blessed as a diocese through the gifts God continues to give us through His northern people. They help us to see what really matters; they call us to faith in our Lord and to a sincere following of Him in our life.

"Our native and non-native people share a special relationship that is made possible through our Lord Jesus. We struggle with the issues of the day in which we live. There is much which would seek to destroy this relationship but by the grace of God we press on to work out the way into the future together.

"That future calls us to a closer walk with God and with each other as disciples of Christ our Lord. It calls us to greater responsibility as we seek to be a Church of Mission in Yukon. We will be called further away from an attitude of dependency to a greater interdependency as we seek prayerfully to be the Church, the Body of Christ in Yukon. It's exciting. We are entering a new era of our journey together.

"We must affirm the First Nation People of our Church as they seek to respond to God's call upon them as a people in the Anglican Church of Canada. It would be good to pray that the Anglican Council of Indigenous People will have the will and the wisdom to do God's work in God's way and not fall prey to agendas that may not be of God. The same truth applies to all of us as the Church today."

One of my fellow non-native partners, Rev. Brian Pearson of Calgary, said of our time together, "Perhaps the most amazing aspect of our experience as Partners at the Sacred Circle was the hope we carry with us as we leave. Truly, God seems to be doing a healing work in our midst and in the midst of our Aboriginal sisters and brothers. This is not a glib observation, as if the scars of such an exloitive legacy do not remain: they do; and many people and communities have only begun the work of healing. But throughout the week there was, beneath all the pain, a palpable sense of joy. God was with us. We were being made whole."

I went to the Sacred Circle expecting to be challenged; instead I was welcomed as a long lost family member. And that's exactly what these people are looking for from the rest of the church - to be welcomed as members of the Anglican family in Canada. I was not challenged to re-evaluate my thinking. Woody Guthrie is still safe in my heart. In fact, the only challenge I received, but one which I stress must not be taken lightly, came from another of the non-native partners, after I had made one too many protestations of our diocese's lack of native members. She asked "Are we only supposed to be supporting 'Anglican' natives?"