I posted this on my other forum, but most of us here aren't also members there so I wanted to share it.

I just returned home from this week's sweatlodge cleansing ceremony with my boy, River. A few other Ojibways even showed up, which is rare around here. The sky was clear and starry, and we huddled around our campfire as coyotes bayed in the distant forests.

Our medicine man, James, sensed that something was not feeling right in my life and asked me about it. I was very vague, but said that I have been facing a lot of adversity and difficulty, in which my earnest and heartfelt attempts to do good for others had been judged and condemned by those who cannot or will not understand.

James asked me to elaborate, and I told him some of the turmoil I am going through. He asked me what I planned to do about the matter, and I said that as difficult as this is, I have taken vows based in deeply-held spiritual principles not to carry harmful feelings and resentments, and that I knew that I had to use our cleansing ceremonies to forgive those who wish I were harmed. James just nodded, and called for the ceremony door to close, and began the ritual. (in my Ojibway/Christian religion, I am not permitted to attack and inflict harm upon anyone, nor to persist in harmful feelings against another. If I am attacked I may defend myself, but I have taken a vow to withhold from being coercive or injurious to others. This is based on my tribe's code of conduct pertaining to anyone qualified to conduct ceremonies with our sacred Pipe, called "Opwaagin" in our tongue)

At the third round of the ceremony, which is our healing round, James spent the entire round giving special prayers for me. This is unusual, since we typically use that round to pray for persons who are outside the ceremony who are suffering from things like diabetes, cancer, alcoholism, etc. But James sang a prayer song and offered a long prayer in Cheyenne and English, asking for peace and comfort for my family.

Afterward, James took his eagle wing fan and used it to give a prayer blessing to the Ojibway kids who were there.

Then he turned and handed his eagle fathers to me and said, "these are yours now." I was so stunned I could hardly speak! I croaked out, "...why?"

James then gave me an elaborate counsel. He said that in our traditional ways, a healer is a person who is called on to be loving, to continually see good in others--even those who would try to harm, scorn, or ruin them. James said that at times, a healer is called upon to sacrifice all that he has, maybe even losing everything, all for the sake of doing the work of nurturing others. He said that my family and I are facing the same crossroads. But what was most important, he said, is that he knew I had been hurt, and he wanted to see how I would respond to it. James said, "I wanted to see if you would bring in a bad spirit or a good spirit to this ceremony. And you brought in no bad spirit at all. Your spirit was good." James thanked me for being positive despite feeling wounded, and encouraged me to stay open and loving, and not close myself off just because I have been harmed in a very personal way.

James also said something else that was amazing. He gestured with his hand toward the horizon and said, "those other ones, they live in a world where love is against the rules. They use love, they use relationships, as ways to attack, so when you love them, they *feel* attacked. They consider it suspicious or bad. But in our way, love is every part of our being. We do our ceremonies in a circle because we are all together, connected, with nobody excluded. We do these ceremonies this way because our Creator taught us to love and forgive. Jesus said this, too: Forgive our wrongs, just as we forgive those who have wronged us. In their world, they can't love so they can't forgive. We love and forgive them, and they can't even feel it. We're not part of their world, and when love is against the rules, they are out of step with the very God they pray to. They pray and talk about love, but they can't live with it. so they attack those of us who DO love." (I'm trying SO hard to remember his words, and the more I type, the more they come back to me)

I have seen this. I have watched as heartfelt words of love and care and encouragement were stripmined and plundered until the heart and spirit of them was discarded and their worth lay in whatever could be used as a weapon, a claim, a judgment against the person who *dared* to utter them. I have seen people so lonely, so empty, that even being valued feels like a trick, a trap.

The eagle feathers he gave me are the ones he has used in every sweatlodge ceremony he has done, and in every Cheyenne Sun Dance he has led. They are the feathers he brought with up on his mountaintop prayer fast during his vision quest. And tonight he passed them on to me.

He also said that when he heard about my turmoil and loss this week, his first thought was, "that's going to be a good thing. You were where you needed to be at the time you were needed, and you did what you were meant to. Things are different because of that. But God, our Creator, Maheo, is guiding this situation, not the ones trying to harm you, and it is God who will lead you where you are needed. So this is a good thing."

I looked back to the previous days this week. Despite feeling hurt and scared, my wife strokes my arm and looks at me with deep love and trust in her eyes. My kids light up to see me, run to me, and give me hugs. They laugh and tease, and feel absolutely, 100% safe and happy as a family. They are never frightened, never unsure of my pride for them, never insecure. And during the sounds of this incredible happiness, I realized...Those who try to hurt us will never have a home that sounds like this. They will never know this feeling. They will live without it, and constantly have to look for foes and enemies all around them to condemn, judge, and harm to feel anything within. And that is far more sad than anything they could take from me.

I could lose it all. And yet I am a very rich man.