Week 4 – a blessing of this space

Sing Kyrie

As we gather here at Camp McDowell, Alabama, we name this land and the people who have inhabited this holy space where we sing and pray, laugh and cry, where we are challenged, nurtured, and transformed. This land is a gift which welcomes and supports us in our holy journey.

We name, now, the Yuchi, Muscogee, Chickasaw, and Shawnee people, whose ancestors – as many as 23,000 years ago entered the land mass of North American across the Bering strait from Asia. They were the first humans who joined the winged creatures, the four-leggeds, and the ones who swim in the water and crawl over the land.

These Yuchi, Muscogee, Chickasaw, and Shawnee used this area as a common hunting ground. And they were custodians of the land on which this camp stands. They occupied and cared for this land over countless generations before being invaded and decimated by European forces.

In 1830, after the Indian Removal Act was signed by President Andrew Jackson, they were forcibly relocated to the country we now call Oklahoma. During the Trail of Tears, thousands of men, women, and children died on the journey.

Sing Kyrie

We also acknowledge the enslaved persons of African descent who lived in bondage here in Winston county, Alabama. In 1860 census (the year before the civil war started), we find that 120 Africans -- ranging in age from 2 months to 56 years were enslaved by 16 owners.

We acknowledge the 347 reported lynchings in the state of Alabama between the years of 1882 and 1968. While there were no reported lynchings in this county, in Walker county, just south of here, there were four.

[Frank M. Johnson, the federal judge responsible for landmark civil rights decisions in the 1950s and ’60s was from this county. In the movie, Selma, Mr. Johnson was portrayed by the actor, Martin Sheen. George Wallace, Alabama’s segregationist governor for 16 years called him an “integrating, scalliwagging, carpet-bagging liar.” Source.]

Beloveds, this land is rich with history. We are surrounded by the spirits of those who walked this ground before us. As we walk on this land, let us walk gently. It is land hallowed by the blood and sweat, moans and tears of our indigenous and African siblings. It is land hallowed by the lives of all those who went before us.

This week, we walk a pilgrimage together, in the footsteps of those saints who went before us, working for voting rights, working for civil rights. As we walk on this land and in the streets of Birmingham, let us listen for the ways that each of us might be called to take action in response to all that has happened here. We offer our hearts, our minds, our spirits, to the Holy One who listens and heals.

Sing Kyrie

By Rev. Beth A. Richardson