By Bruce Smith
Since moving to Montana and joining the Standing Rock protests, I’ve found inspiration and meaning in aspects of the Native American world view. Recently, Jeanne and I attended a presentation by Montana’s poet laureate, Chris La Tray, a member of the newly recognized Little Shell tribe. I’ve just finished reading his book Becoming Little Shell and wanted to share a prayer that he records there.
In this prayer I found the use of “Grandfather” for God intriguing; not unlike “Abba” as we find in the Bible. Having recently lost my mother, the last sentence referring to the ancestors was particularly poignant.
So here it is, as spoken by a Little Shell elder at the celebration of the tribe’s Federal recognition. A prayer that I hope you find appropriate for us any day.
“So I want to say thank you, Grandfather, for allowing us to walk in this beautiful day beside you. Grandfather, I pray for all my relations, the two-legged and four-legged, the swimmers and the crawlers and the flyers. I want to give a special prayer to my mother Earth here, and ask her for her forgiveness, for the scars we put upon her every day. But I ask, and I thank her, for the life she gives us every day. Grandfather, watch over us as we celebrate this good time, this blessing our life here today. Keep us healthy and happy and safe and in a good way. Look us up and down and have pity on us today, Grandfather. Let us get by in life with what we need. I ask you, Grandfather, and you, Mother Earth, to bless our old ones, and our young ones, with every step that they take upon you. Grandfather, let the young ones be young, run around and have fun, and be children. Let the old ones live to be old and teach us. Grandfather, we thank you for all that you give us. Thank you for all that you take from us. Thank you for the blessings that you give us every day. We love you, Grandfather, and we miss all our relations that are up there in the heavens with you. Thank you for this day.”