Monday, October 10, 2022

Prayer

“Oh, Great Spirit,
whose voice I hear in the winds
and whose breath gives life to all the world, hear me.
I am small and weak.
I need your strength and wisdom.

Let me walk in beauty and make my eyes
ever behold the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have made
and my ears sharp to hear your voice.
Make me wise so that I may understand
the things you have taught my people.
Let me learn the lessons you have hidden
in every leaf and rock.

I seek strength, not to be superior to my brother,
but to fight my greatest enemy – myself.
Make me always ready to come to you
with clean hands and straight eyes,
so when life fades, as the fading sunset,
my spirit will come to you
without shame.”

Chief Yellow Lark, Lakota – 1887

Mitakuye Oyasin – “Mitakuye Oyasin” is from the Lakota language and roughly translates to “we are all related.”

Indigenous Ministries and Tribal Relations – Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

Read the Declaration of the ELCA to American Indian and Alaska Native People. Additionally, you can read this statement from ELCA Pastors and the Presiding Bishop on Indigenous Peoples Day in 2020.

Good Shepherd & Pine Ridge

Every summer a passionate group from Good Shepherd caravans to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota to work on various projects to help the lives of the Lakota people. Learn more here.