![]() ![]() ![]() This false hope is detached from all experience and reality. This lifestyle creates a false bubble called “Western civilization,” which people in the West think will protect them from future calamity. The way of life demonstrated by Western peoples leads to alienation from the Earth, from others, and from all of creation. To Indigenous peoples, the problems of a Western worldview are obvious. Living with the land means respecting the natural balance. Living on the land means objectifying the land and natural resources and being shortsighted concerning the future. The settlers wanted to live on the land, but the host people lived with the land. The difficulty, as the Natives saw it, was with the settlers themselves and their failure to tread lightly, with humility and respect, on the land. ![]() The very land itself meant something quite different to the newcomer than it did to the host people. As Richard puts it, “ Perhaps the primary example of our lack of attention to the Christ Mystery can be seen in the way we continue to pollute and ravage planet Earth, the very thing we all stand on and live from.” Theologian, scholar, and Cherokee descendant Randy Woodley describes the difference between the attitude of early North American settlers and the Indigenous people who were already present on the land. In the West, most Christians have been shaped by culture and faith into a paradigm that normalizes acquisition, at great cost to others, ourselves, and the land itself. Living with the Land Wednesday, October 20, 2021 ![]()
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