They were hungry. They waited and prayed, but nothing. Finally, one day, three men met a beautiful woman dressed in white. She had been sent from the heavens to keep the Lakota people from starving to death. She was sent to advocate for them. She asked the buffalo people to sacrifice themselves to feed the people. And they did. This is why the hunters give back to the earth every time they killed a buffalo. They knew it wasn’t their hunting skills. They knew it was because the buffalo people had given up their own lives to feed them. They knew not to be proud but to be humble. If it wasn’t the will of the Creator, they would not be able to kill a buffalo. And they were grateful. But they had to wait a very long time before this miracle happened. It was the Holy woman from the heavens called the White Buffalo Calf Woman, who had the compassion, strength and courage to come from the heavens to bring the Father’s message to her relatives, the buffalo people.
Another time, in another place, a woman was to marry the Chief’s son, the most sought-after man in her community. But a Star man came to visit her. He would sit in a tree, waiting for her. One day, she made the decision to marry the Star man she had grown to love instead of the Chief’s son. She went with the Star man to live in the heavens. They married and had a son. One day, as the Earth woman was working in her garden, she pulled out a huge turnip, and through the hole that it made, she could see her family and yearned to be with them and for her son to know his relatives and for them to know him. She asks the Creator, the Great Spirit of the Heavens if she can take her son to Earth. He said no, but she waited and asked again and again. The third time, the Father of Heaven said yes but warned that the earth must never touch her son, or he would go back to the heavens.
Her people had a great celebration when Earth woman and her son Star Boy arrived on Earth. But, one day, her mother and sisters tell her she’s too protective and send her to fetch water from the creek, assuring her that they will keep him on the blanket to make sure the earth doesn’t touch him. But as she returns to her village, she sees her little son being taken back to the heavens. She mourns from deep within her heart. Yet she is comforted with the knowledge that her son knows his relatives – he knows what it’s like to be human and will not forget his Mother’s people. She knows in her heart that when it’s time, the Father of Heaven will let her beloved son come back to save his people. She waits, hopes and prays. In the meantime, Mother Earth’s mothers and sisters wait, hoping and praying for the children of the world to be touched by the Peace of Heaven.
When this comes to pass, she imagines a great celebration in the heavens when all the Star people sing and dance life, love and peace into the universe. And Mother Earth herself listening and dancing to their music with her children on her back. She has waited for thousands of years, and there is darkness all around. But she still hopes that her children will honour their Father, their Mother, their earthly relatives and their human sisters and brothers. There is hope in the Great humble Peacemaker of heaven and earth who came to earth as a child born of a humble earth woman. Where there is humility, there is great power, and light shines on the darkness.
The Rev. Mary Fontaine, Moderator of the 2023 General Assembly