All of Our Commitments

I will take what I learned this weekend back to my Justice & Witness team and develop a plan to work on for the next 6 months

As a representative and the face of institutions and traditions that have caused great pain, I vow to keep the stories of past trauma alive as a way to bring healing and hope.

Invigorate the future: Find more young people like me to share my spiritual joy, and what it means to pass it on.

Upon return to my home church, I will share the 'ah ha's' that came to me at this meeting.

Take the story from this meeting. Share it with my congregation. Study - examine our church's story & how our story has been harmful. Build in the R2R journey we are already on.

To engage my friends, church family and family I live with in conversation about settler colonialism and all the injustices that have followed as a result.

Remind the dominant culture to not center themselves. Make sure the direction they want to go is the direction of the folk actually harmed.

1. Read a non-fiction book written by a Native American.

2. Give a sermon to APUCC about becoming 'woke' about the Native American history and what we can do as a church, and as an individual community.

Prayer for the deep and intentional exploration, unfolding of complexity I/we still hold in the harming of Native people. Commitment to continue to confess and shift my/our behaviors & perspectives towards empathy & pro-action.  May we learn the Gospel anew from the Native communities, living the Creator's words, images, and promises for nourishing life in all of its expressions in just and loving, understanding and inclusive ways.

Offer an adult education class in November '24 around the conversation of horizons of healing, with concepts like repentance, relationship, reconciling, using truth with love (not into the wind), education, invitation to activities offered by local & statewide indigenous neighbors.

I make the commitment to read 1 book per month to further my knowledge of Indigenous History and concerns in addition I will attend as many cultural events as possible.

Look for my family's land story and share with them.

I will support building a good container on March 29th with plenty of notice, good preparation, and a spirit of anticipation.

Preach a sermon on forgiveness.

Do worship that teaches/reminds us of the pain of the indigenous population for the loss of their culture. Hopefully that results in our support of local, state, and federal methods of reparations, such as a new water system at the Warm Springs Reservation.

Designate mission offering to Native American organization. Organize an event to educate people about Native American history in Benton County.

I promise to engage in discussion w/my colleagues at Bridgeport for six months about new horizons of healing

Taking this Fall Gathering home. I will write an article of this weekend's experience once a month for FGUCC's Viewpoint. And I will stop bullying whenever I see it.

Research Native history where our church is located and in general the area of Clackamas County to learn reality of how our church and other communities in the county are implicated & begin to discuss future actions.

1. Explore relationship-building with OSU longhouse: could involve educational piece that identifies where and what tribes are the students from; place pins on a map that illustrates tribal lands & their shrinking reservation boundaries. 

2. Expand camas planting along the church driveway. Involving partnership with tribal folks & more help from congregational members. Sharing of a meal together.

I commit to keeping my heart open to the suffering not only of the Indigenous people but of the African American people, the Hispanic people, all those who have been harmed by the juggernaut of colonialism, capitalism, religionism, and all forms of self/class/race/religion centeredness. And I commit to being a part of the on-going discussion of what might be helpful for everyone involved.

Physical wellness competition trauma healing

Work with Pastor Robin to work out a church trip to the Grande Ronde Cultural Center with follow up questions to discuss.

I commit to reading the commitments, finding patterns of interest and hope, and leading the re-convening in March.

1. Look to the poets. Joy Harjo's anthology of American Indian poets will help us all through this. 

2. After WWII, my parents homesteaded on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula. The money from my father's inheritance allowed me to buy a little house in Forest Grove. The homestead land was the hunting grounds of the Kenaitze Indian tribe. I want to do something for the tribe - perhaps give a donation to Kenaitze Head Start but honestly I have no money to give,so I will spend the next six months figuring out what to do. 

Meanwhile, look to the poets.

Bring back learnings to congregation:

- continued education about Whitman Mission/Cayuse 5, having delegates share about experience. 

- collective participation in Rebecca Clarren event

- ongoing mission support of Tamastlikt as well as support of the Cayuse 5 project

- revisiting our Reckoning with Racism team goals (we participated in cohort 1&2)

Personally: 

- Read Sarah Sanderson's book

- visit Grande Ronde cultural center (potentially with church members)

I will learn more about the CPC Facebook & YouTube podcasting and how we might use it to further our anti-racism work

Continue to work on my project of writing my setller-colonial ancestors' story of settling the US - in relation to Indigenous Americans and Black Americans. Inquire about working with Molli Mitchell & Melissa Reed on the land liberation effort as part of the UCC contingent, particularly in terms of developing relationships with indigenous Oregonians.

I promise to have more discussions at my church about anti-racism efforts

Research Indigenous People's Working Group - have they studied missionaries of West? Whitmans, Stapletons. If so, discuss learnings. If not, offer to teach/share. 

2. Articles in newsletter re: what I"ve learned re: white conqueror/converter history vis a vis Cayuse.

3. Share with church relationship between learnings here & connection to motherfaith (environmental racism)

Share with our R2R committee my experience this weekend. Share in a sermon the concept of the horizon of healing.

Come back to visit the mission and learn more. Re-read Murder at the Mission. Learn more about Mr. Adams. Financially support search for Cayuse 5.

Come back to visit the mission to have time to take in more info, & Cultural Center. Put names of Cayuse 5 on kitchen cabinet to say them out loud and think about them. Read Sarah Sanderson's book The Place We Make learning more about Oregon City. Go to Oregon Historical Society to find out more and Louis & Inadawn Adams. Work with my church and how to tell this story more and also commit to talk to people I know. Visit Grande Ronde Cultual Center.

I will keep reminding myself that I have turned toward a new horizon. I will meet for lunch with church friends/members and talk about what we learned and how all of us need to turn toward horizons of healing. I commit to address current incidents of racism and ignorance that I encounter, so our descendants don't have to pay reparations for our actions or lack of actions."

Read Murder at the Mission. Share what I learned with my family and friends. Share what I learned with my church. Help organize lectures & field trips for my church.

Introduce the concept of "turning toward a horizon of healing" to our Responding to Racism team, and to the board in hopes of beginning the process of heading toward that horizon.

What are we willing/able to do to refute the Doctrine of Discovery and to "lay our armor down?"

Read: The Place We Make, My Grandmother's Hands, Biography of Sherman Alexism The Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

Plan: 2 events with JPAT for building connection locally. 

VOTE

More connection with Oak Flats

Participate/lead a service about this weekend's experience. Lead a service talking about the Native American experience of Thanksgiving or some other topic. Read 2 books from Native American perspective. Visit the Warm Springs Confederated Tribes museum. Participate in any local programs that support local confederated tribes.

- Establish relationships with students at the Oregon State Longhouse. Learn about the tribes they represent. Approach with a confessional stance & respect.

- Establish relationships with the tribes of the Grande Ronde, to deepen the relationship we started in having them plant camas on our church property for future harvest. 

- Share the stories we have heard here in a congregational setting, to help others understand our role in the past and the importance/necessity of reparations and relationships.

- Continue discussion, with an action plan in mind, about how we use the land our church occupies.

I will donate to our reparations fund at church

Work with First Congregational Portland and Forest Grove UCC and Pacific University on the boarding school restorative justice project.

Begin having conversations with church moderator/council to begin process of prepping church to think about our next horizons as a community.

To share the knowledge & experience that was learned from this conference with those who are within my community of faith & otherwise

1. To learn more about the story of Medford UCC & the throughline from Whitman -- Atkinson -- Ashland UCC -- Medford UCC (With Caren C & Susan Shepard)

2. to plan with Caren a "journey story" @ Medford UCC where we can tell the truths that haven't been told about who we are and how we came to be here/have been here.

Make room for new conversations & perspectives in my community & ministry. Holding space for those with softer voices.

Take confirmands to a gathering of Native Americans

Apply Kristina's book to real life church life

Take our congregation to the 5 Oaks museum and have discussion

Bring back what I've learned to our community, to our Indigenous Relations Working Group, our Loving God, Loving God's World cohort, our 'Ohana youth, our congregation. Speak the truth in love. All of my relations.

I commit to reading, learning more about my Vancouver church's history with the indigenous groups as well as those from my home area in Montana

Engage my congregation on this issue -- Native lands, reparation, etc. Educate!

Be more receptive of the good. Not focus so much on the bad.

Work on a better understanding of the land on which we do ministry and take steps to start including that long history in our work.

I will engage with the Indigenous People's Working Group at our church and attend Longhouse events at the U of O and attempt to develop relationships in these places.

Attend a Native religious ceremony once a month

Acknowledge who was here before me. History might not be accurate - verify. Land was never empty. There are at least 2 sides to a story. Know both.

Reach out to 5 churches & conference office to organize 1 minute of prayer each Wednesday for Children of Palestine/Israel/Ukraine who are suffering from war.

Preach about Indian School at P.U. (I am not a clergy person)

I will actively support the Cayuse 5 project in contact with the creators of the project and bring any information to our churches.

Investigate & learn our land story. Continue the education begun this weekend alongside congregants.

Bringing indigenous rituals, stories, history, teachings to my church learning to understand them from their perspective.

A commitment to reading & studying issues both from history & through the passage of timere: the Walla Walla, Cayuse, & Umatilla tribes. Understand their historicl lives, how they fared moving through the 1840 to current day, & how it has shaped them as a nation & as individual people. The more I understand about their history, the more I can move forward to the horizon to take steps to making changes in myself & to voice suggestions ina reconciling way that offers them a better future for the needs they voices for themselves individually & collectively as a nation.

Find out whether my former churches are doing this work - possible collaboration? What/how are Oregon City churches doing? Continue to share info & my passion w/my church family and my own family through conversation, book renews, bulletin boards...

Go through one of the books mentioned this weekend w/a group of my church & discuss as a group how we can act.

Belonging Without Othering: Horizon of Healing

To grow in grieving.

Be open, aware, receptive & in connection with those God brings into my sphere.

In the next 6 months I will work on the journey of being a part of starting up the welcoming committee of UCC Salem. Broaden the horizon. Will work on my spiritual journey of forgiveness.

Write an article for the church letter about our experience hearing the story of the Native Americans and the Whitman Mission.

Treat others' stories as a gift even when their story makes me feel wrong. Ask, when Spirit moves, "What can I do to help repair the wrong?"

My commitment is to stand with my siblings near and far in defense of life for those in Palestine who are beig crushed by the same forces of genocide and occupation. Fridays from 5-5:30 at the corner of 2nd & State.