Advent Message: Passing Tobacco, Inseparable Truths
Luke 1: 39-56
Last October, I attended a Red Rising Magazine event at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, featuring the theme of Two-Spirits. One of the speakers, Chantal Fiola, told us the story of how she started passing tobacco to seek out and find elders and traditional knowledge holders across Canada. She grew up just like many other Red River Metis people. She wasn’t raised going to Indigenous ceremonies; she was raised Catholic. She was once an active youth at her church - singing in the choir, etc. However, she began to feel something was missing and that she would need to answer the deeper yearning in herself to connect to her roots and identity. Through the journey of finding her way to the ceremony, (sharing circles, smudging, women’s drumming circle, full moon ceremony, a Two-Spirit sweat in downtown Toronto) she learned that being female, Two-Spirit, and Michif (Metis) are gifts from the Creator. When Fiola chose Indigenous Studies for her doctoral degree and met Midewiwim elders who brought her to the ceremony, she knew that she had finally found a home with her people. Eventually, the Midewiwim elders told her, “It’s time for you to go home and make these relationships where you come from.”
As soon as Fiola moved back to Winnipeg, she began to seek out spiritual teachers and build relationships, passing tobacco, with trust that some elders and traditional knowledge holders have retained knowledge about Two-Spirit people. This information is not easy to find, given the degree to which colonization and homophobia have affected her communities. She passed tobacco to more than one elder who said, “I’m sorry. I don’t have the teachings you’re looking for. But don’t give up - the knowledge you seek is out there.” She offered tobacco to sacred fires and asked the Spirit to help her find Two-Spirit teachers. Her tobacco was answered and she began meeting Two-Spirit people. To make her amazing journey short, she said recently she passed tobacco to the Chief of a Midewiwin lodge in Shoal Lake, ON, himself a Two-Spirit person. After a pipe ceremony and traditional feast, and with the help of a Grandmother Water Drum, the Chief generously shared with her the Midewiwin Anishinaabe Creation Story featuring Two-Spirit people…The affirmation, “We’re in the Creation Story.” became the reason why Fiola continued passing tobacco to seek untold teachings since then.
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| Romi, 2017 |
Fiola’s story of passing tobacco to find elders, teaching, wisdom and solidarity broadened my understanding of Mary’s journey in today’s Gospel reading. A betrothed, pregnant thirteen-year-old Mary travels ‘with haste’ to seek out another woman, a cousin, Elizabeth. In contrast to the traditional gloss of Mary wanting to share her joy, the Greek idiom “with haste” connotes alarm, flight and anxiety. She is alone, shamed and frightened, seeking understanding and comfort from her cousin. Mary is a young pregnant woman, living in occupied territory and struggling against victimization and for survival and dignity (Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza). Mary finds safety in sharing her pregnancy with a pregnant Elizabeth; her cousin reminds her of Gabriel’s earlier message that “God is with you”, and Mary sings a song of liberation for the marginalized and the oppressed who have been forced to experience shame. Elizabeth is, for Mary, her elder who tells her the new creation story in which she and Elizabeth exist: “God is with you, our Emmanuel God.” Don’t be afraid.
The relevancy and parallel between these two stories is so apparent; the story of Chantal Fiola and the story of Mary and Elizabeth: these women pass tobacco to find their own kin and the reasons for rising again, to be steady with themselves, who they are, claiming their courage. These stories are the stories of self-acceptance, coming out in a collective journey toward solidarity, safety, love and justice. Here, spirituality for the oppressed charts the path of survival with dignity because they have the audacity to dream. In this way, along with Mary, we also come out into our creativity to the good news of the birth of Christ: “God is with us”, our Emmanuel God. Do not fear.
We are the main characters in our own journey, recollecting those times when we needed and searched out people who could be our elders and spiritual mentors; to find the truth and make essential breakthroughs in our lives. Maybe you have also been the one who was sought out by others who needed your support and teaching. Passing tobacco and accepting it is a powerful image of solidarity.
For me, preparing the Advent messages went just like that: symbolically, passing tobacco to search wisdom, knowledge and teachings. I soon learned that in regards to the understanding of Mary in Indigenous community, no research has ever been done. So I began passing tobacco (only symbolically.) I called and sent text messages to my colleagues and friends and considered them as my elders. No one was ready to answer my question: “Who is Mary in Indigenous Christian communities in Canada?,” until I met Nicanor Sarmiento, who originally came from Peru, himself an Indigenous person, and a graduate of the prestigious Graduate Theological Union (GTU) in Berkeley, California. My friend, Carman Landsdowne, a strong Indigenous scholar/pastor, connected us. Sarmiento currently serves as a pastor at St. Kateri Ketakwita Aboriginal Catholic Parish, in downtown Winnipeg. When I asked my question, “Who is Mary for Indigenous Christians?”, sitting with him in his office, he smiled. He answered that the Indigenous understanding of Mary is “almost zero,” even to Catholic Christians.
Then he asked me, “Can you see why?”
Shyly, I said, “No clue.”
He said, “Because Indigenous communities value grandmother, Kookum.” In fact, grandmother’s roles may be greater than that of mothers.
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| Aaron Paquette https://aaronpaquette.deviantart.com/art/Sainte-Anne-80512896 |
That insight touched me deeply. As I grew up, I didn’t develop strong, deep relationships with my own grandmothers; their participation in my life did not run very deep. I couldn’t wait to call Janet Ross (one of my elders.) She said, as one who had experience of teaching in a historically black college, “No surprise, when we think of African American focus on Jesus’ grandmother rather than on Mary. In African America, because of the slavery culture, raised by grandmothers…. not only the biological grandmothers, but the grandmothers in the community.”
Nicanor explained, “We don’t have the story of St Anne and Joachim, Jesus’ maternal grandmother and grandfather in the Bible, but people passed it on by tradition - Jesus’ maternal grandmother and grandfather. St. Anne is Mary’s mother. That’s why we see the biggest devotion in terms of women given to St. Anne. There are two big sacred pilgrimage places devoted to St. Anne in Canada and they attract thousands and thousands of Indigenous people. What do grandmothers do? Nurturing faith, nurturing culture. They are the knowledge holders and carry the cultural expressions, language, ritual, ceremony, passing on education generation to generation.”
Throughout history, Indigenous Christians have developed a creative synthesis of cultures and religions and their traditional ways of life; this is true to most Indigenous Christian communities around the world. The root and faith are inseparable truths. As you see in this picture, St. Anne lovingly embraces her child, Mary, on her lap. The mother of Mary teaches Mary how to read, molding how she understands, reflects on and appreciates the mystery of life. Language takes such an essential role in people’s growth and cultural continuity. The mother of Mary teaches her how to reflect on what life reveals. In this picture, Mary holds the book. The words written in the open pages of the book mean, in Cree, the Word. Jesus, the son to whom Mary gives life. We see the incredibly powerful, strong maternal bond of Saint Anne to her own girl-child. The mother and daughter relationship has the power to overcome a patriarchal colonization which has disrupted the traditional ways, the Circles and medicine of Indigenous communities. Traditionally, women created space and protection for all people, including the Two-Spirit members, to have mino-bimaadiziwin (a good, healthy, balanced life). so that we will not forget the instructions the Creator gave to all people.
Next Sunday, we will search for Mary in Latin America, among the poor and among those for whom race, ethnic heritage, indigeneity, gender, sexuality and spirituality are not and cannot be separable. We will find the Mary who have to find themselves in the spiritual borderlands, in the inseparable truths. Travelling together on our journey, we continue to pass tobacco to extraordinary and ordinary people around us, who can be our elders and teachers. Together we search history and memory, traditional and true, new and untold creation stories for our collective future- making. In these stories, we meet Mary and Elizabeth, Kookum and the child Christ, The Great Manitou / our Emmanuel God, sung to our own stories of hope.
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