RIGHT RELATIONSHIPS

As a child growing up in Michigan, some of my fondest memories of the great outdoors were with my Dad, JOHN DIEHL, and my Grandfather, ELMER FISHER. Up in the Thumb Region of Michigan near Minden City, among the farms were woods and lakes. Together, along with the women folk of our small clan, my Dad and Grandfather would teach me how to fish in a nearby watering hole on Conaby Hill. I used a bamboo fishing pole, and especially enjoyed practicing putting the worm on my hook, there was a high degree of skill involved in that endeavor. What, of course was most thrilling was the good fight that those darn catfish would put up. I would always let them go free after catching them, it was the only right relationship to have with them. We did not need them for food, so it was only right. But, what I never told anyone, until now, was how special it was to be out in the trees, the lake, and the sun with my Dad and Grandfather. That relationship with them among nature was timeless and priceless – thanks Dad and Grandpa! Those memories will last forever in my heart, and always mean the world to me, since our relationships were in harmony with mother earth.

The Aboriginal peoples around the world know intimately the right relationships we must all share in common. One Indigenous Chief spoke of the following; “These lakes, these forests, and hills were left us by our ancestors. They are our inheritance, and we will part with them to none. He/She, the Great Spirit and Master of Life, has provided food for us in these spacious lakes, and in these woody forests”. All of nature we are surrounded by our brothers and sisters within the deer, the fish, the trees, and the loons. They all talk to us and if we compassionately listen with a sincere heart, we will hear them.

In June 2003, I was personally welcomed to Slant Lake, Ontario, Canada by a couple of delightful loons. They were calling out to me each morning and every evening – it was pure music to my ears. The loons and their relationship to me and the surrounding Boreal Forest was just spectacular. In the early morning mist, after washing my face in the cold water, I would sit on a rock and listen to the loons saying “good morning Scott”. The loons were the highlight of my trip to Grassy Narrows, an Indian Reservation just north of Kenora, a small town in Northwestern Ontario, Canada.

This traditional land use area of the Anishinabe Natives is one of the most beautiful places on earth. By just about any measuring stick, Canada’s boreal forest represents one of the world’s most valuable natural areas. It contains some of the wildest, most intact and healthy natural ecosystems in the world. This is home to 28 First Nations communities, whose ancestors have been here for thousands of years, and were great stewards of this precious land, that is until the greed and violence of White Men have raped and pillaged it so rapidly, so very recently. Remember, all the world is an intricate web or circle of life, which is all about having right relationships with one another. There must exist balance and harmony with humanity and nature, as the aboriginal communities all over the world have maintained for centuries. The Indians have always understood the right relations we all must share, and the non-violence one must learn with their relationship with the Great Spirit’s (God’s) creation. Money, greed and violence should never supersede our right relationship with our Creator and all His/Her creations on earth.

Upon setting foot on this truly gorgeous land, the eyes of my mind were fully aware of my responsibility to protect the land and the indigenous natives of this sacred forested lake region. It reminded me of a classic movie made in the early 1980’s, filmed in Northern New Hampshire, starring two legendary greats of KATHERINE HEPBURN and HENRY FONDA. The movie is entitled, “On Golden Pond”. A remarkable movie about restoring right relationships among people and nature. In this marvelous movie, Hepburn’s character had to say hello to the lake and honor the call of the beautiful couple of loons, just like on Slant Lake for me. As in all life, it’s about relationships and making them whole and right with the world. In the movie, it was about making right relations between a father and daughter, a teenage boy stuck between divorced parents, and an old married couple facing the end of their lives. But, all these broken relations revolved around God’s natural environment; among most of all the right relationship between the couple of loons, teaching the joy of fishing to the younger generation, and passing on those important values as my Dad and Grandfather did with me in Michigan. It was also about our respect for all the wild creatures in the lakes and forest. As an example, when Fonda’s character taught the boy to return “Walter”, the huge, old prize-fighting fish back to the lake. It was about mankind’s humble relationship with the water in swimming, canoeing, and even “skinny-dipping”. This movie mimicked life about all relationships and the close knit bond we as humans have with one another around the world, as well as with God’s natural, creative environment, whether it is, “On Golden Pond”, Conaby Hill or Slant Lake. It is all about right relationships and doing our very best to find that right path which leads to harmony, peace and justice. We must never lose sight of what is truly important in life by being blinded by the false (Capitalism), evil temptation of money!

As a BLACKFOOT Indian once stated to the White conquerors; “Our land is more valuable than all your money. It will last forever, if we respect it. It will not even perish by the flames of fire. As long as the sun shines and the waters flow, this land will be here to give life to humans and animals. We cannot sell the lives of humans and animals. It was put here for us by the Great Spirit and we cannot sell it because it does not belong to us.”

Based upon this Blackfoot premise, then the trees are not for sale in Ontario’s boreal forest to make huge profits. For the last several years, a large lumber company by the name of Abitibi Consolidated has been clear-cutting the boreal forest’s, which are also the home to aboriginal tribes. This is not a right relationship for all parties! Abitibi Consolidated is raping and pillaging the land and the Anishinabe people all for the sake of evil money. The disrespect for the Great Spirit (God), the natural environment, and the indigenous cultures are outrageous and IMMORAL. SHOON, a member of the Anishinabe of Grassy Narrows explained to us on the CPT Team, the destruction of 75% of his trap line by Abitibi’s thoughtless and greedy logging. Due to Abitibi’s destructive logging, the native’s way of life and culture is being permanently destroyed. Traditionally, the natives have survived for centuries off this wondrous land by hunting, trapping, fishing and gathering. In addition to whole trap-lines being cut over by Abitibi Consolidated, wildlife move on to find food elsewhere eliminating hunting as an option. Plus, many of the lakes have mercury poisoning due to White Men’s paper pulp processing mills over decades ago, hence eliminates fishing, because the fish contain deadly toxins and pollutants. What’s left for the natives? Absolutely nothing, but mediocre and demeaning welfare and a wasteland that the Great Spirit must cry out and shed tears. This land was put here by the Great Spirit for all to share equally, not to be stolen or purchased for the shameless greed and enormous waste of White Men. This land is not for sale – it does not belong to humans, but to GOD alone. It is to benefit all living creatures in a respectful, right relationship!

White Men throughout the world, but especially in the United States still remain ignorant to the ways of right relations with God, God’s creation and to all of humanity, especially to the majority of poor, oppressed, and most vulnerable found in the world. Abitibi Consolidated sells over 80% of that priceless Ontario boreal forest to the United States processed as paper pulp for newspapers. Once again, the U.S., and all consumers of daily newspapers, you and me, are directly responsible for the killing and total destruction of God’s natural environment and aboriginal cultures. Abitibi Consolidated are only the suppliers, like drug lords, to fill the demand for newspaper print. The Hawk Eye newspaper here in my “displaced” town of Burlington, Iowa is responsible for the death of God’s glorious creation. I only purchase the Sunday edition, but that is still too much! God forgive those people who subscribe to seven days a week, for they do not know what they are doing. All of us must stop purchasing newsprint paper coming from Canada’s boreal forest region and the rainforests. Instead, cancel your subscription to any newspaper, and start using the Internet for all your news sources. In addition, to saving indigenous cultures, saving forests and wildlife, you would also be restoring your right relationship to our God, whatever name you use to worship Him/Her in your honored faith tradition. We could also help eliminate the four giant media conglomerates by not purchasing their papers, which are full of lies by evil corporate America and the Washington millionaires club in Congress and the White House. We would be doing a great justice to all of humanity in one sweeping movement. Non-profit organizations will better supply you with the truth found around the globe anyways.

Yet, I went to Grassy Narrows to be in solidarity with their actions to prevent further clear-cutting, and to help uphold Treaty #3. This struggle for respect and compassion is more about upholding treaty rights. Residents of Grassy Narrows say they want loggers to cease logging on their treaty territory. They say loggers don’t respect or recognize First Nation rights to land and resources. “We used to come hunt moose here,” one Grassy Narrows band member said, gesturing toward Stewart Lake. “Now its all clear-cut.” This is an issue of violence perpetuated towards native peoples. A full-time Christian Peacemaker Team’s (CPT) volunteer, MATT SCHAAF of Manitoba, Canada said the following. “CPT volunteers are trained to reduce violence. One form of violence is taking more than our (White Men’s) share of the trees and forcing Anishinabe people off their traditional land.” This is extremely disrespectful and anger driven against the most vulnerable people in all of our cultures around the world. “It is the roots of anger in you that produce anger. The roots of anger lie in ignorance, wrong perceptions, in the lack of understanding and compassion,” states THICH NHAT HANH, a famous Vietnamese Buddhist monk and peacemaker/author. He further says, “nonviolence can be born only from the insight of non-duality, of interbeing. This is the insight that everything is interconnected and nothing can exist by itself alone. Doing violence to others is doing violence to yourself.”

Abitibi Consolidated, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, the federal Canadian government, and the United States’ consumers of newsprint don’t understand the immense anger and violence they are committing against the indigenous peoples, God (Great Spirit), and themselves in the long run. If all of them continue their destructive behavior of disrespect and lack of compassion towards the Anishinabe culture of people and the natural resources that belong to God, then this violence will destroy Canada and eventually the United States too. All violence kills! The aboriginal’s will die! The land, the water and the wildlife will die! The extremely neo-liberal capitalism will collapse, and kill democracy and freedom. Dictators will rise, similar to George Bush, and chaos will rule the world. True evil, similar to George Bush’s every action, and violence will grip the world like a vise, squeezing every drop of blood from humanity. While the evil and violent God-replaced idol of greed and money dictate in our wrong relationships with one another in this situation, as well as others, we will all remain an ignorant and selfish people (White Men), and destroy the earth. MICHAEL MOORE says it best with his bestseller book, “Stupid White Men”. We will never gain the insight for right relationships, until we accept and understand in a truly compassionate way that the Great Spirit (God) comes first and foremost, then people, all people without exceptions come next, and then upholding a true right relation towards this awesome planet we call earth. We are all interconnected, so every wrong perception, every wrong violence incurred, and every wrong relationship destroys people, environment, and even God, because He/She is in all of us. When we hurt any of God’s creatures, we have committed a crime against God, which hurts all right relationships. Even the beautiful loons are adversely affected, when government’s (Canada/Ontario), corporations (Abitibi), and consumers (U.S.) continue wrong actions, such as ignoring the treaty rights of the Anishinabe, and creating vast wastelands with clear-cutting. We must listen to the great words of JOHN TRUDELL, a Sioux native. “We must go beyond the arrogance of human rights. We must go beyond the ignorance of civil rights. We must step into the reality of natural (God-given) rights, because all the natural world has a right to existence. We are only a small part of it. There can be no trade-off.” What we as people and citizens of the world must do is to plant our hearts and souls into this glorious earth, and allow our compassion and love to flourish and grow towards non-violence throughout the world. “Loving speech will rescue us. Compassionate listening will rescue us. This is a miracle… You have the capacity to do it! You have enough peace, enough compassion and understanding in the depths of your consciousness,” stated THICH NHAT HANH.

We must listen with a compassionate mind and heart to the indigenous cultures. Aboriginal people in Canada, and specifically the communities in the boreal forest regions are only demanding an equal voice in resource development decisions affecting their traditional lands and waters, which is their treaty rights. So, one of the main actions that the Anishinabe people have done are road blockades on logging roads to deny logging trucks access to the Whiskey Jack Forest. I personally participated in one of their overnight blockades, which started around 10:00pm and lasted until the following morning around 9:00am. Together with Grassy Narrows residents, we built two campfires. We enjoyed the camaraderie around the campfire, especially the singing and drumming, despite the bone-chilling cold and rain mist. I stayed up the entire night to show my strength and will of support. “I’m here to help with the blockade to stop them from clear-cutting. This is my home,” said TYSON FOBISTER, a Grassy Narrows youth of 14 years old. These roving blockades were spearheaded by JUDY DASILVA, a Grassy Narrows activist, who also helped conduct scientific studies of contaminants found in the mercury-laden water, the otter and Pine marten. “It still gives me alarm, especially with the presence of dioxins and furans which are connected to certain types of diabetes running rampant in aboriginal communities,” stated JUDY DASILVA.

What we continue to witness here in Canada, as well as most other countries in the world including the United States are the areas of economic and social development, environment, health, human rights, culture, education and natural rights of aboriginal cultures being destroyed by the dominant cultures. Free trade rather than fair trade being forced upon all countries in the world by the United States government is the biggest evil being sought after at the expense of God’s most vulnerable, poor, and oppressed peoples, especially the indigenous. Free trade is rapidly creating a world where three-fourths of the people will become desperately poor, while an evil one-fourth of elite, ugly rich, and immoral will own and control everything. God save us from the likes of George Bush and the millionaires of Congress, and others like them, whose actions make them slaves to worshipping oil and trans-national corporations. God save us from an ultra-conservative mass media, like FOX, including your very own hometown newspaper, radio (Clear Channel), and television news.

Some glimmer of hope is evident with the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, a new United Nations body established in 2000 that met for the first time in 2002, is seen as the best opportunity yet to provide a broader horizon for indigenous issues within the very competent UN system, and lead to more effective protection for some of the most threatened and vulnerable peoples in the world. But, “until right relations are restored between the Anishinabe and the rest of Canada, until the treaty is acknowledged, the people whose home is the forest, Grassy Narrows and loggers will be subjected to the bullying of a trans-national corporation (Abitibi) and the governments of Canada, and Ontario, and the newspaper consumers of the United States,” as stated by CPT’er MATT SCHAAF and myself. As a CPT banner reads, “The Treaty is Forever, Lets Protect It.” This is our duty, yours and mine to protect it! These are our brothers and sisters in humanity. Unfortunately, the anger, the fear and ignorance of many in our society, only two days later after hanging up the above-mentioned banner, the trees it hung from were chain-sawed down and the banner ripped in half. How so very sad a day! God, the Great Spirit shed another tear upon the earth, because this once again was more violence. The insecurity coming from the dominant (White Men’s) cultural attitudes of having some so-called right to no pain, and danger all around us, like 9-11, and being an isolated and fearful, hate-filled individual or Nation(s), such as the United States and Canada is in dire and stark contrast to Jesus of Nazareth’s holy gospel message that security is found only in right loving relationships with God, others, and the living earth. It is up to all of us humans to find and seek out the path towards right relationships with one another. We should follow the examples shown to us through great people like the Buddha or the Jesus found in all of us. We could learn deeply about right relationships just by viewing precious nature, and listening compassionately to the trees or my favorite, the peaceful loons on Slant Lake or “On Golden Pond”. Rent the movie, and learn about striving towards right relationships. Or, listen to your inner voice, and learn the truth. Become a person of true courage and strength by learning and practicing a non-violent lifestyle, and be a real hero in God’s eyes. Help the indigenous people – NOW!!! Ask compassionately and without any malice or anger all our world government’s officials to do the right relationship for aboriginal peoples and the earth by setting aside greed and money once and for all. Also, you must set your priorities straight by donating money to peace-loving organizations and people on the front lines like me at God Bless The World; www.godblesstheworld.us God (Great Spirit) loves and blesses all the world, not just the USA, and so do I.

“It is no longer good enough to cry peace, we must act peace, live peace, and live in peace,” an INDIGENOUS PROVERB.

GOD BLESS THE WORLD!