As we move from writing our land acknowledgement to living into the prayer we are saying every week on Sunday, the (soon-to-be-renamed) Land Acknowledgement committee will be sharing resources and calls to action for your consideration!

Here is something that is easy and quick to do but that could have a large impact in the long run. The Episcopal Office of Government Relations is advocating for legislation to establish a Truth and Healing Commission to investigate the impact of the system of Federal boarding schools on indigenous cultures, religions and languages. This could be a first step toward officially recognizing the harm done by these schools (some of which were run by The Episcopal Church). If you participated in Sacred Ground, you probably remember the Dawnland movie that powerfully covered this issue, and some of us recently watched Blood Memory which captures the experience of removal and return. There is much more background at the website for the Office of Government Relations, along with a form email that you can edit and send to your senators and representative. Please contact Nancy Lewis (nancjlewis@gmail.com) if you have any questions.

Photo Credit: Students at St. Mary’s, an Episcopal school for Indigenous girls on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, are seen in an undated photo from the G.E.E. Lindquist Papers, held by the Burke Library Archives at Union Theological Seminary.