Dear Relatives, Cante Waste ya Nape Ciyu zape ye. I greet you from my heart. As we approach Easter and springtime amidst the many various Lenten disciplines I’m sure you have devoted yourself to, I pray you and your loved ones are well. Lent is a time of reflection and learning, it is fitting that…

By: Sarah Eagle Heart In 2009, the Episcopal Church became the first church to repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery with several churches following our lead, including the World Council of Churches in February 2012. In order to educate our church on resolution D035 “to Repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery,” this event brought stories of indigenous…

By: Terry Star Working With Youth My name is Terry Starr, and I’m a deacon serving in the Episcopal Diocese of North Dakota. My parents have always been involved with community activities for youth. My extended family includes the children and teens from the many communities we’ve lived in. Since high school, I, too, have…

By: Newland Smith My place in the story of this nation is clearly rooted in New England, an unambiguous Exhibit A of a Connecticut Yankee whose eighteenth-century forebear was Hezekiah Smith. Hezekiah Smith, who was born in Barrington, Rhode Island, in 1726, took up farming in Woodstock, Connecticut, and in 1764 moved to Colrain, Massachusetts,…

By: Kathryn Rickert This presentation was given as the third of six offerings in a lament over the Doctrine of Discovery held on Tuesday, July 10, at the 77th General Convention of the Episcopal Church, in Indianapolis. As far as I know, the Episcopal Church is the first in history to publicly repudiate the Doctrine of…

By: Eulogio Quito On behalf of the Central Diocese of the Episcopal Church of Ecuador and my indigenous brothers of the Andes, I greet you with brotherhood, peace, love, and blessings. The Aztec poet Chilan Balan described in the following passage what happened in our ABYA YALA as a result of the conquest: “They plucked…

Episcopalians everywhere invited to add their voicesto the Lament Over the Doctrine of Discovery Special event at General Convention is July 10                         A prayerful gathering, in a Sacred Circle,                                      with readings, stories, prayers, songs, reflection,                                     giving and receiving;                               In acknowledgment of and response to the tragic consequences                                     of the Doctrine of Discovery;                         To encourage communal awareness and…

“We seek to address the need for healing in all parts of society, and we stand in solidarity with indigenous peoples globally to acknowledge and address the legacy of colonial occupation and policies of domination,” Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori states in her Pastoral Letter on the Doctrine of Discovery and Indigenous Peoples….

Since early this year a working group of clergy and lay people have been working on a four part series in direct response to resolution D035, passed by the General Convention of the Episcopal Church in 2009. The resolution repudiated and renounced the Doctrine of Discovery (DOD), a set of legal and ecclesiastical documents and…

When I give workshops, I stress that advocacy is a very broad term. It is often more than contacting our elected officials. Advocating for justice can mean educating yourself and others about an issue; it can mean changing your mind and the minds of others; it can mean changing your actions and encouraging change in…