Thoughts while waiting for a fire smoky sunrise

Despite the array of offerings on our TV dish, things get a little desperate in the very early morning hours, the point I tend to arise. News is stale and films can be mediocre.  Sometimes I find it necessary to simply immerse myself in some of the Sirius music channels for an hour or two.

Early this morning, though, I came across TCM with an old favorite of mine, Inherit the Wind -- based, of course, on the Scopes/evolution trial in Tennessee, now almost nine decades ago.  It's a 1960 film and. although there's been a remake, I don't like remakes (and am also skeptical of most sequels.)  At the conclusion of this always timely film, the Clarence Darrow character (played well by Spencer Tracy), standing alone by himself in the courtroom, holds in one of his hands a copy of the Bible and, in the other, Darwin's Origin of the Species -- weighing them.  And then he claps them both together and leaves the courthouse.

I've always liked that very much.  Whether Darrow actually did that or not is, of course, speculative.  But, his agnosticism notwithstanding, he easily could have.  He comes through history as a cosmopolitan and essentially respectful guy who recognized common humanity, liked most people, thought broadly and deeply.  As I've said, I see no conflict between science and religion unless one side wants one.

Almost all Native people respect the theologies of others.  There are thousands of tribal societies in the Hemisphere and each has its own basic theology.  This great pluralistic array certainly lends strongly toward respect for different religious beliefs  and this can certainly extend to non-tribal religions, e.g., Christian groups -- if missionaries aren't pushy. 
 
Tribal theologies do not seek to convert anyone.  This is also true of the pan-Indian [intertribal] Native American Church which, embodying varying degrees of Christian admixture with traditional beliefs depending on the setting, utilizes -- and very carefully so -- sacramental peyote. And it's true of syncretic religious approaches where, say, Catholicism or Anglicanism are mixed with the old tribal religion.

I tend to see all theologies in symbolic terms. I tend to respect them all -- with the exception of the institutional television mega-churches with their skimpy spiritual and social offerings and their substantive commitment to personal money-making.  And, even there, I respect the grassroots people.

It isn't at all unusual for a Native person, while holding true to his or her traditional tribal beliefs, to visit the tribal ceremonies of others or even a few different Christian denominations -- and this can involve membership in a Christian church. (But the old tribal beliefs remain.)  In a fascinating book, American Indian Religion and Christianity by Fr. Carl Starkloff, S.J., published in the early '70s, the astute priest, while recognizing certain differences, traces the many parallels between certain traditional tribal theologies on the one hand and Christianity on the other.

Back to Inherit the Wind.  William Jennings Bryan, who prosecuted in Scopes, was a great man of the grassroots whose positive social justice contributions were many.  In the twilight of his life, he found himself mainly in religious fundamentalism and hence in the Tennessee trial.  But I always remember my maternal grandmother, whose mind, with one area of exception-- chronology -- was clear and sharp at the end of a very long life.  She used to tell me of the absolute importance of always supporting "Mr. Bryan."

Given the sorry economic conditions in Western American agriculture which have been building for the past several decades, now compounded by extraordinary drought and other Global Warming-induced ills, and which are far from the higher priorities of both major parties, we could use The Great Commoner out in these parts.

Hunter Bear [Idaho]


HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis 
Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk 
Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´ 
and Ohkwari' 
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO
www.hunterbear.org 
(much social justice material)

See Outlaw Trail: The Native as Organizer:
http://hunterbear.org/outlaw_trail1.htm
[Included in Visions & Voices: Native American Activism [2009]
Much expanded with new material in 2012.

And see the Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm
(Expanded and with more photos in June, 2012.)
 
For the new, just out (11/2011) and expanded/updated
edition of my "Organizer's Book," JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- 
with a new and substantial introduction by me.  We are now at 
the 50th Anniversary of the massive Jackson Movement of
1962-63.  http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm