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  • Added August 15th, 2010
  • Filed under 'All Sorts'
  • Viewed 2288 times

A true pilgrimage experience.

By Aelred Edmunds in All Sorts

Aelred has attended a Native American Pipekeepers gathering in Minnesota.

I have just returned from a Native American Pow Wow or Gathering in Pipestone, Minnesota. This was a gathering of what are termed "Pipekeepers" - keepers or guardians of the Sacred Pipe or Peace Pipe. I am privileged to be a Pipekeeper in New Zealand, and I conduct regular Pipe ceremonies in Dunedin.

Certainly this has been one of the Peak experiences of my life - including my spiritual life. This has been a true pilgrimage experience for me.

And what am I, a Christian, doing in my involvement with the spiritual practices of Native Americans? Firstly, the Holy One (with many Names) is Unity, not divisions. Secondly, "I need all the help I can get," as they say. Christianity does not have the answers to everything, and other religious traditions can, depending on the individual's needs and background, provide important insights. Thirdly, "the global village" reality of our time makes nonsense of religious (and other) tribalisms. At this time in history we will walk together or perish in isolation.

I am also firmly of the view that the Holy Spirit speaks in ALL traditions - according to the cultural forms known to the people concerned. As St. Augustine said, what is called the Christian religion "existed among the ancients, nor was it wanting from the inception of the human race until the coming of Christ in the flesh, at which point the true religion which was already in existence began to be called Christian."

As I proposed recently in a sermon, "Christ is the Life Force." Christ is bigger than the historical Jesus. Christ is everywhere...in man, animals, plants, human cultures. Christ is at the heart of every atom. "....and when the moment, the imperceptible instant called death comes, it is always Christ who withdraws, as much from a tree as from a human being." (Mircea Eliade)

And so I return to New Zealand having celebrated the presence of Christ in forms, rituals, celebrations, that on the surface do not look or sound like Christianity at all. This has been a very good thing for me. What have been some of the results? An incredible sense of newness, freshness. The Christ has been dressed in Church garments for 2000 years, and some of those garments are very musty and dusty indeed! It was amazing to perceive Him dressed in very bright colours, wearing a feathered head-dress, and dancing beautifully to the magic beat of the great drums.

What I am really saying here is that we should embrace ANY experience in the human family which helps to break the rigidities of long-established custom and habit. It is WE who are bound up, not Christ. Christ is free in all the world, and in all expressions of Life.

-- Aelred Edmunds

This item was first printed as a Connections article in the Parish weekly bulletin for August 15, 2010.