I Want to Dance In the Mighty Palm of Your Hand

Paramore is a band I always find myself going back to. I love the combination of a female vocalist with incredible vocal range with a band that can cover all facets of rock with an unabashed attitude. Recently, I have gone back to a clip of them performing for BBC Radio Live, where they perform the song "Let the Flames Begin." At the end of the performance, the band continues to play the song as Hayley, the lead vocalist, sings a prayer:

Father, 

Oh Father,

Oh Father, 

Oh Father,

Father,

I am ready.

Won't You let it begin?

'Cuz I am here now,

I want to dance in the mighty palm of Your hand.

I had chills the first time I heard this, and I continue to find myself mesmerized by her screaming vocals as the instruments wail in the background.

Tonight, my community and I decided to pull over on the highway (don't worry, we were totally safe) on our drive home from Valentine (a town in Nebraska about 45 minutes out). We were so enthralled by the stars that we had to watch it from the roof of our van. As I tried to fight off the cool winds and calm my shivering body, I noticed how all the stars seemed to have little rays of light connecting them to each other, as if it was a web. Everything seemed interrelated. I then noticed how large the sky was, how many stars there were, and how insignificant I seemed to be in relation to the cosmos. The last line of the prayer above, "I want to dance in the mighty palm of Your hand" came to mind. I looked around to see the outline of the hills as they dipped and rose above the horizon, and I thought of the Earth as one giant palm, holding us all. The road reminded me of the crevices of a plam as the hills rolled above us.

For the past few weeks, I have been sitting uncomfortably with a sense of insignificance. Although I have gotten the hang of my job, I still worry that I am not bringing enough to the table, that I don't have enough to give to this work adequately. As I realized how small I was staring out at the sky, I felt a sense of acceptance about that insignificance. All of us, being so small in relation to the universe, are but mere grains of sand. However, that doesn't mean we don't have things to contribute. We all form the sands of beautiful beaches that take breaths away. I am realizing, very slowly, that, although I feel like I don't have many things to bring, I do. I bring a willingness to work until the job is done, a vulnerability to admit that I am terrified and clueless as this year progresses, and a desire to learn and grow. My community and I had a great discussion after our star-gazing efforts that I am eternally grateful for, and it really helped me to recognize some of the significance and importance of these qualities. 

I pray that as this year continues, I find more peace in realizing that I alone cannot make great changes, that I do not have all the answers, that I, in certain ways, am insignificant. This is not to downplay my talents or set myself up for failure, but merely to humble myself to where I admit that I am on the same playing field as everybody else and, more importantly, that I am here because of forces much greater than my own. 

Every day, I find myself praying, "God, drag me." I'm insignificant in God's grandeur, and yet He still carries me forward, He still drags me, He still offers His palm so that I may dance in it.

This Is Not A Competition

I just got home from my first sweat in South Dakota. I've done one other sweat ceremony when I was in New Mexico a few months back in the Navajo Nation. I definitely expected there to be differences between the two interpretations of the ceremony, but I was REALLY taken aback by how individual each ceremony felt. For anyone who is not familiar, the best way to describe a sweat ceremony is a prayer ceremony that focuses on oneself in connection to everyone else, the world, and God. A sweat takes place in a sweat lodge, which is a low-ceilinged structure (sometimes a hogan, sometimes a dome, there are many different shapes). You crawl into the lodge and remain there for the four rounds of the ceremony. Once the fire has burned the rocks for quite some time (outside the lodge), burning rocks are brought into the center of the lodge which has a large hole dug out for the rocks to sit. Rocks sit in each possible direction of the earth. Once everyone is in, all the rocks have been placed, and sage burns on each rock, water is poured onto the rocks and the steam fills the sweat lodge, pouring over each individual (all participants sit in a circle very close to each other). Each round has a different method of prayer and communication. Let me break down the four rounds for you guys of my first sweat here.

Round One: Oh my word, what the hell was I thinking?
So, the first round (in Lakota sweats) is the most intense round. The rocks are burning at their hottest, you are not yet accustomed to the heat, and it definitely feels like the longest round. The opening to the lodge is covered, leaving you in complete darkness. Small steam waves hit you and you think, "Oh, this is cute. Like a sauna." WRONG! DON'T YOU EVER IN YOUR LIFE ASSUME THAT AGAIN! Within five minutes, I was afraid I would start to get sick.  Each breath fills like dust coming into your body, and, yet, the towel that is supposed to filter out the discomfort a little is already so hot there is little to take that away. Sweat is dripping from every pore of your body. I didn't ever actually get sick or dizzy (thankfully), but the fear was there. This round is in complete silence minus the singers who sing various prayers at the top of their lungs. The drum pounds loudly as you sit trying to center yourself away from the intensity of the steam's heat. I found myself crying out in my head, "Dear Jesus, what the hell was I thinking? Please just pull me through." And lo and behold, right as I thought I would have to walk out or leave, the flap was uncovered and the sweetest rush of cool air filled the lodge. We all exhaled in a collective sigh of relief. Mitakuye Oyasin (roughly "we are all related").

In the break with the flap open, we went around and each individual prayed for any number of things: family, friends, gratitude for life, struggles, joys, triumphs, etc. We each sipped water and then, once we were replenished, round two began.

Round Two: Okay, I think I can do this...
The flap closed again, a few hits of steam made me nervous that I would repeat round one, but the waves were calmer, more consistent. I began to think "I think I can do this..." The singers began again, and I was able to get a little bit closer to the center. I didn't need to use my towel as often. I began to sit straighter. Nothing too revolutionary in this round except I was a little tougher, a little more able to focus on the most important thing: prayer. All of the intentions we had said in the break were racing through my mind, so it was difficult to fully focus, but I felt like I was starting to get into a prayerful mode.

Round Two ended and we had another opening of the entrance. This time, a tobacco pipe was passed. The tobacco pipe is the sacred pipe, one of the foundational pieces of Lakota culture and religion. We were told beforehand we didn't have to inhale the smoke, we could merely puff it if we wished. The pipe was passed around and after each pass, we said Mitakuye Oyasin, further connecting us.

Round Three: Prayer Time!
This was the round that changed the game for me. From the moment the entrance closed, I felt myself pulled into the pseudo-trance of intense, prayerful focus. Each of my family members, each of my friends, each of the intentions mentioned in the sweat came up in clear, crystal focus. I didn't necessarily spend a whole lot of time on each intention, but it was so clear that I was praying for a lot of different things at once. I felt myself completely unaware of the sweat, the singers, or the lodge itself. I was just thinking about the prayer. I had a funny moment of realization where I screamd in my head, "Oh my goodness! I'm ACTUALLY praying!" It's a pretty incredible mode of prayer I rarely find myself able to access, so I really hope and PRAY that I can get into more mindsets like that even outside the sweat ceremonies.

One more quick break.

Round Four: Thank You
The heat of this round had calmed just like the round before. In New Mexico, this round was called the Warrior Round where the heat was most intense. It was the opposite here. This round was a continuation of the singing and praying, but I merely found myself overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude: gratitude for friends, family, the people in the lodge with me, God, life, the Earth, everything. I smiled. I smiled a long time in that round. Thank You were the only justifiable words.

We exited the lodge and allowed the night breeze to cool our skin. People went around thanking each other and shaking each other's hands, and we've been invited whenever we want (they run sweats weekly).

The greatest part of this ceremony was the piece of advice we kept getting from everybody before the sweat began: this is NOT a competition Sweats are not some random test to prove one's strength and durability in heat. We were told from the get go if it ever got too intense, we could yell the safety word and leave. This is NOT a competition. This is prayer. This is connection. This is meant to unify, not divide. The sweat is about humbling oneself to a state where one recognizes one cannot live this life alone, and it is then about gratitude to God for providing all we need to live full lives on this planet. People looking to do this simply to say they "survived" the sweat are not comprehending its ultimate intent. "This is not a competition; this is about prayer." I'll hear that phrase every time I go now. Thank you to everyone who helped make this ceremony possible for us. I look forward to many more this upcoming year.

Mitakuye Oyasin.

Just Know You're Not Alone...I'm Gonna' Make This Place Your Home

Transition is funny. I feel like we all spend our lives transitioning. Being an infant to our first days of pre-school to our leap into middle school to our dive into high school to our plummet into college or a career to our utter blind fall into full-on adulthood. A very lucky set of us choose exactly how each fall or leap will look and where it will land and manage to stay on par with that plan. Most of us, though, seem to find ourselves in mid-leap.

"Where did the time go?"

"How did I get HERE?"

"What's gonna' happen?"

I find myself asking these questions every single day. Of course, I recall very vividly how I got from my application for a Fulbright to South Africa to my decision to not apply to graduate school to my JVC interviews, acceptance, and job placement. But, how, in the grand scheme of things, did my life lead me here to a Reservation in South Dakota?

As I wrestle with the question, I find myself yearning strongly for the familiarity of college, of my old friends, of my family. It's now been over a month since I stepped onto the plane to go to orientation, and I can't seem to process what has happened in a mere month. I assumed that once the first month was behind me I would feel fully settled, into a routine. I laugh at my old self sometimes.

If anything, being a month into this experience makes me realize how much this place is not yet home. I don't know if I will ever have the right or the ability to call this place home, but I really desire to. I'm still working at finding my niche in this placement. I realize that my writing skills might be of some use, I'm getting to unleash my inner photographer (you know, because I'm super talented like that), and I have taken over parish bulletins and general web design, but I keep having this feeling that I don't have real skills to bring to the table. It's a struggle for me because I recognize that I most likely will not do any ground-breaking work while I'm here, but that doesn't mean that I don't want to be the best I can be at the humbler tasks I perform. Not having a full, solid footing yet, though, makes this placement still feel like that...a temporary placement.

I am very blessed to have a wonderful community who has supported me and welcomed me in every single moment, and the greater parish communities have welcomed the three of us with open arms. I still feel like something hasn't clicked, though. I struggle to discover what that is. In my attempts to figure it out, I've recently been playing Phil Phillips' "Home" nonstop (hence the blog title).

With all that being said, though, I recognize that this is a great place to be. I have the chance right now to explore, to take some risks, and to see what happens. There is a certain freedom that not having everything figured out presents. It allows me to try so many different things to see what I am best suited for. I have seen so many awe-inspiring sunsets, majestic animals, powerful skies, humble people, heart-wrenching pain, soul-soaring hope, and, frankly, God.

SoDak, do me a favor. Let me call you home.


P.S. if you haven't noticed, I transitioned the full blog name as well. In the simplest, totally insufficient definition, the Red Road is a Native American right way of life. It's the right path to live one's life by. As I blog and record my experiences here, I hope to get a little closer to that road.

Failure Is A Part of the Mission

So, in our orientation two weeks ago, one thing our boss said was that failure is a part of any Mission experience. Failure happens, it is inevitable, and it even can be a moment of grace and growth if handled in the correct way.

Let me say this, I am experiencing it in many little ways thus far. This past week was our first full week of work, and it's insane to think about all that was accomplished in the course of 6-7 days; however, it is also hard for me to swallow the fact that I've already had many little moments of failure. Now, I'll preface by saying that all my mess ups have been, for the most part, small little learning moments that didn't destroy anything holistically sound or structured. However, in the moment, each mess up seemed insurmountable, and it finally hit me like a ton of bricks...I don't know how to fail gracefully.

I've been doing a lot of work at the radio this past week, and it has been such an educational and learning experience for me to work the board, get out into the field and talk to people, create commercials and liners, and simply fill dead air on the radio waves. I am so thankful for the patience and support of everyone at the radio who have helped us 3 volunteers get into the swing of things. I never thought that in one week I could feel confident enough to sit in the on-air room alone and keep things moving. With this confidence, though, I also bring many nerves. Many times throughout the week, there were ads that needed to be played that I missed, names that I mispronounced, songs I didn't realize needed to be included in spots throughout the shows, and so on and so forth. It is humbling to realize that I have very little experience in this field, and that I know close to nothing about it. The hardest part for me is to simply accept the moments I drop the ball and learn from them. I am a perfectionist, and, as a result, I hold onto my mess ups and let them eat away at me, creating a bigger internal issue than necessary.

I am still trying to find my niche at the Mission as well, so it's hard for me at times to stay positive when I build these failures up and convince myself I have nothing to contribute. I have been praying every night that WHEN (not IF) I fail next, that I can have a little more grace and class than the previous time. To this day, it's one of the most mature prayers I've ever made. I didn't expect to come into here perfect; I knew I would mess up, but that didn't make it any easier when the little failures came.

As I take a few days off and reflect on the first week, I simply want to learn how to let go and move forward with a new mindset and energy. I'm hoping and praying that as more failures come, so will my growth and knowledge and gratitude. So, in a way, I look forward to failure? (Okay, I'm not THAT insane. I'm secretly still hoping I'll be perfect by Wednesday). But, hey, I think I'm taking steps in the right direction.

So, if there's one thing I can definitely say out of experience: failure is one heck of a teacher. I just hope I become a better student.

I Wašíču

Today, the three of us had a lecture on Lakota culture and religion tied with Catholicism. For most of the lecture, we talked about the various nuances of sounds in the Lakota language. At one point, the Deacon instructing us taught us the phrase "I Wašíču." "I" means "mouth" and "Wašíču" means "white man." He said that phrase is given to people who constantly talk, constantly talk, constantly talk.

In the past week, I have been told how fast I speak...

Apparently, my Jersey mouth is a little bit noticeable?

Fail....

It'll Be Alright...Keep Going

Sitting in my new home in St. Francis, South Dakota, located on the Rosebud Reservation, I find myself thinking about the words of my boss, "It'll be alright...keep going." There's always a smile and a quiet chuckle with the phrase; this is mostly how he ends any conversation.

Ever since the JVC year has begun, I have experienced this idea in so many ways:
     "This isn't goodbye, it's just see you later."
      Just enjoy this moment with your closest friends and worry about nothing else.
      Simply board the train from Overbrook back home and pack that last bag.
      It's only a step on the plane to orientation and then the year begins.
      God...drag me if you must.
      One more plane ride and South Dakota will already be home.

With orientation both for JVC and my local site, I have simply kept going, trusting in the experiences of past JVs, my fellow community, my bosses and coworkers, my friends and family, and my God.

Where I live, the Rosebud Reservation, is a place that can be easily written off if only looked at through statistics: 2nd poorest county in the USA, an unemployment rate around 83%, a rampant and complex system of drug abuse and alcoholism, a history of oppression that has bred severe distrust, one of the highest suicide rates in the world, and broken homes or dilapidated buildings frequently visited by individuals under the influence of any possible substance.

But what if we were to keep going, not beyond this place, but into this place? Statistics and physical breakdowns are hard to move beyond, but what if we consider that we don't need to move beyond, but move with? In tandem with these struggles, we may start to see the community of St. Francis Mission that provides family recovery programs, a dental clinic, religious education resources, spiritual centers for community, a suicide crisis hotline...or maybe KINI 96.1 FM and its mixes of 80s rock attack, classic country, top 40 hits, sports announcements, dances, funeral announcements and condolence messages, job journals, and more...or possibly the rolling plains of St. Francis, Mission, or Rosebud and the blood orange sunsets, all-encompassing skies, and dazzling thunder storms...or the Lakota culture that seeps into every facet of life from rituals to language to food to religion to dress to speech to mannerisms to livelihood.

This is a year where I want to keep going, keep encouraging, keep praying, keep failing, keep learning, keep teaching, keep sharing, keep struggling, keep succeeding, keep communicating, keep pushing, keep dreaming, and keep trusting.

So, as much as I love my boss's outlook, I'd like to make a slight change. It won't be alright. It already is alright, and, frankly, those words disappoint all that Rosebud is. It is beautiful, and I want to keep going.