Soon it will be the first Monday of the month. I have set it aside as a day, when I think of young Indian men and the pressures on them. They are facing another year in a sterile class room. No Godliness. Listen to these young people. They will tell you of the agony of being fed meaningless information.
Information is like roughage in your diet. It’s meant to go “through” you. Raw Data. Use it and dispose of it. It’s not meant to be retained. Instead of ‘trash’ your spirit wants “meaning”; it wants nourishment, it needs something that will stay with you.
Young Indian men search for the answer to the question “why?” It is deep in their Indian soul to look for Wisdom, to search for the tried and tested. Traditional.
Within the past hour I’ve talked to a mother dreadfully worried about her son. The boy is a Junior in High School. Already counselors are collecting ‘information’ preparing him for College.
The ‘information’ will show him how to be ‘outstanding’, alone. How to leave behind his home land and his parents. How to be different from what his mom and dad are. Different from what his grand-parents are. Different, even, from what his friends are.
He will be told to violate the strongest force in all creation, the force of relatedness. The force of togetherness. The force of attraction and of family and of love. He will be taught how to “use” others; he will never taught how to be a servant to others, how to spend himself for them…….unless it is for cash.
You wonder how the older generation lived so long and so satisfactorily. They lived because they gave life. They spent themselves for others. They served. They did the hard work of cleaning up and repairing and renewing. (Now-a-days, “Don’t save it. Just toss it!”) And people get tossed, too.
When we were still at Stephan, I was driving on Highway 14 from Miller to Highmore. I saw two girls carrying bundles and walking. I stopped and picked them up. I got their stories. One was sixteen, the other eighteen. Both had run away from men/women who were using them. One was trying to find a way to Oakland where her sister lived; the other hoped to get to Seattle and to a friend.
They looked so worn out that I asked them, “Would you like to come to our school and rest over night? In the morning someone will be going to Pierre. That’s on your way.” They hesitated, but at last said, “Yes!”
Sister Bertille put them up. The next day she came to find me. “Father, I think I should keep these girls for a couple of days? They are miserable. They need a lot of care. They’d like to stay, if it’s okay.” That was years ago. I wonder “Where are they?”
By law in school no one can talk about their spirit to young folks like those girls. Nor about ceremonies or sacred songs or sacred beings. If counselors talk about ‘dreams’, it must be about dreams of secular success, not about an uplift of spirit.
At Blue Cloud we offer the fifth step to all the graduates from Dakota Pride, the Treatment Center on the reservation at Sisseton, Old Agency. I ask that the boys and girls come early and have the noon meal with us. At the dining table we are able to help them unwind and find that at Blue Cloud there are trustworthy and stable friends and good relationships.
Whether they are Catholic or not I give each one, boy and girl, a blessed medal of Saint Benedict. Once in a while I miss one. Sure enough before they leave the overlooked one comes to say, “You missed me.” St. Benedict is a strong and sure companion for whoever you are.
If you need a medal, or a few, write to me. I always keep many on hand.
More and more like you are joining me in our One-Day-a-Month prayer time. For the new ones let me repeat: I began the Day of Prayer, because I knew the families of the boys who were dying. I knew that I must do something to walk with them in their depression. I chose the first Monday of each month as my Prayer and Fasting Day.
If others want to join us, just send their names. We need each other.