Dream Catchers: How Mainstream America Discovered Native Spirituality

Catholic New Times, March 20, 2005 by Katie Flaherty

Dream Catchers: How Mainstream America Discovered Native Spirituality by Philip Jenkins, New York, Oxford University Press, 2005, 249 pp.

MohawkSaint:Catherine Tekakwitha and the Jesuits by Alan Greer, New York, Oxford University Press, 2004, 306 pp.

Last week on a professional development day, I was invited, along with a good friend who is a drummer, to give a day of reflection for a group of Catholic elementary teachers.

The day began with a gospel reading, some yoga stretching and breathing, and an hour of deeply restorative meditation in shivassana (corpse pose). It concluded with a resounding drum circle. It is serendipitous that I would be a part of this spirit-filled day just as I was finishing Philip Jenkins' book Dream Catchers: How Mainstream America Discovered Native Spirituality, because it has provoked a lot of personal reflection about how much native spirituality has shaped and deepened my own faith.

In the drum circle, my friend Terri reminded us how stress in the modern world has disjointed us personally, and has disconnected us from the rhythm and heartbeat of Mother Earth. Drumming has been used for centuries as a way of re-aligning the inner orchestra with this beat, of connecting community, and of de-stressing and reviving the body, mind and soul. We are entrained back to harmony with nature, each other, and with infinite spirit. The language she uses reflects a deep reverence for native spirituality, and yet can deepen and enhance our own Christocentric faith.

Jenkins' book traces the historical trends in North America that changed popular attitudes of native spirituality from degraded spectacle to New Age salvation, from devil-worshipping snake dances to sacred shamanic healings. He illustrates how Native Spirituality has become the antidote for empty, repressive and exclusive Christian patterns. It champions the community over the individual, bases its rituals on respect for Mother Earth, asserts the innate sanctity of all creatures, reveres the feminine, accepts gays as balanced, and has a powerful sense of body-all in an age of individual greed, exploitation of nature, exclusion of "others" and disconnection from the Earth and the global community.

Of course there are problems with lumping all the rich and vast native traditions into one spirituality, says Jenkins, just as there is controversy about the white man's appropriation of native sacred symbols. And yet he asserts that the admiration and sincere desire to learn from native spirituality attests to the positive aspect of Judeo-Christianity reflecting on its own attitudes towards nature, sacred landscapes, the environment and the spirituality of the body. All of this is mirrored in the work of Thomas Berry, Matthew Fox and several others.

Allan Greer's book, Mohawk Saint: Catherine Tekakwitha and the Jesuits. illustrates how religion is shaped by the attitudes and needs of the viewer. Two hagiographers, Claude Chauchetiere and Pierre Cholenec, one an emotional mystic and the other a pragmatic historian, had earlier presented Kateri in ways that suited their own personal and cultural needs. For Chauchetiere, Kateri was a mystical Native woman in tune with the earth, spirits, and deeply empowered with a peaceful healing power. For Cholenec, she was a pure and prayerful virgin, so elevated above the "savages" who participated in pagan rites all around her. For both, Kateri became as much a symbol as a person; for both it was crucial that she was fully Mohawk as well as fully Christian. Both were awed by how her spirituality and reverence of nature permeated her every action and daily chore.

There are parallels in these books-the main one being how once native spirituality is viewed with an open mind, it can become a true and powerful path to the infinite spirit, which can challenge and enhance one's vision of Christianity.

As the two hagiographers learn to admire native traditions of the ethic of hospitality, reciprocity, unity, rituals of solidarity, conflict resolution, respect for elders and consensus model of decision-making, the reader as well is compelled to see the wisdom and possibility of these traditions in our own Church.

The books do not gloss over the pain and injustice of the government's treatment of native peoples, but they end in hope for the future as we deepen our respect for the truth and treasures of native symbols and rituals.