From the Associate Vicar: Land Acknowledgment Statement

From the Associate Vicar: Land Acknowledgment Statement

From the Associate Vicar: Land Acknowledgment Statement

# From The... - Letters to the Congregation

From the Associate Vicar: Land Acknowledgment Statement

Dear One’s of St. C’s,

At Diocesan Convention last October the group in our Diocese, Circles of Color, asked each church to create it’s own Land Acknowledgement Statement.  A Land Acknowledgement Statement is meant to recognize the people and tribes who were here before the land was colonized.  As we face all sorts of different injustices in our country I feel we keep learning that the collective trauma from our past does not go away by trying to bury it or hide it from plain view.  It is actually in the reckoning with our past that all who are connected to the trauma that occurred can begin to heal, form real relationship, and hope to create a better future together.  

Our ultimate hope for our Land Acknowledgement Statement is that as we name the truth about the land we occupy that we can recognize the tribes that still exist today and remember our past together.  We hope to form deeper relationships with these tribes as we go forward and we desire to create a better future together.  We have already begun this work as a community by reading the book, “Braiding Sweetgrass”, listening to the presentation on the Doctrine of Discovery by the Reverend Rachel Taber-Hamilton, and participating in the Diocesan One Service. All of these actions are about being a part of the bigger story of healing for our nation and the tribes that are still among us.  Last week some members of St. C’s sat down with Alissa and formed the below Land Acknowledgement Statement:

“We acknowledge that we gather in community on the territory of the Coast Salish peoples, including the Muckleshoot people. We are grateful for this land as a place to garden, grow food to share, cultivate bees and flowers and to worship, play, learn, and be transformed.”

This is not our final Land Acknowledgment Statement.  We are going to spend the next couple of months practicing using this statement at meetings connected to the church.  We are looking for feedback and questions as we continue to finalize this statement.  When we feel like we have gotten good feedback we will start to use the statement during Sunday morning worship, events, and meetings connected with the church.  Please, let me know if you have any feedback.

Thank you all for your participation in all our learnings around Native/Indigenous peoples and this statement.  Your openness to growth and learning about different cultures and ways of being is always encouraging to me.

with continued hope,

Meghan

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