Scott Anderson "Runningbull" wrote:
> I have been invited to go and hear a plan for peace....not just for Bosnia,
> but for the whole world, that must begin with the Native Peoples of North
> America. So says the Virgin Mary, who has been appearing in Bosnia daily for
> many years!
This probably sounds so mean and cynical, but why should this
appearing now further world peace when it could not/would not
prevent the awful bloodletting of the former Yugoslavia?
> Scott "Runningbull" Anderson
> Editor of TIMBER! Newsletter of Prophecies of Native Peoples Worldwide and
> Mother Earth's Coming Changes at
> http://members.aol.com/spikegritz/mw44/bluelodg.htm
I went to visit this site and much that is on it I personally found
rather strange, like the 'prophecies' for example (to me they seemed
like something you'd want to put in heavy quotation marks).
And I would not be commenting this, if it were not for the fact that
Gary is asking us to take this message seriously.
Gary Trujillo (gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us) writes:
> ...In any event, this troubled world of ours certainly is much in need of
> peace - as well as environmental restoration and a heightened awareness of
> the causes and consequences of what I cannot help but feeling is a very
> wrong course we have taken during much if not all of recorded history.
> Whether we can take another course is "yet to be determined." But in any
> case, I think and feel that it is certainly worth seeking solutions wher-
> ever they might be found - and there are elements in this phenomenon that
> would seem to indicate that something real is going on.
What are the elements? That this is now happening in a war-torn
Central European country which has been given world-wide attention
because of the tragic events that happened there?
And what solution for world peace can one be looking for in a
country which erupts in intense inter-ethnic hate and slaughter for
the second time (or third?) this century?
By this, I do not want to slight the importance of pilgrimages to the
Medjugorje Virgin Mary for believing Catholics, or any one else, for
that matter. I'm just surprised that this message from Scotty
Anderson was given so much weight.
Only my opinions,
best regads,
Pirkko Vishnevskij
(visnevskij@latuko.helsinki.fi)
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Comments from NativeNet listowner, Gary Trujillo (gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us):
As I tried to express in the comments I added to Scott's article, and in
the article on this subject posted a couple of months ago, I really don't
know what's going on here and have plenty of questions myself. I suppose
the reason I approved Scott's article is connected to the fact that I may
myself get a chance to take part in this event and wanted to give others
in our electronic community a chance to reflect on the whole thing and
what, if anything, it might represent. At the very least, it seems like
a chance for many Native people to get together and to think about the
subject of peace and how we can advance the cause of peace. I don't at
this point know just who will be going, but I hear that there are thus
far twenty two going from the United States and more than forty five from
Canada. These people include chiefs, elders, healers, and administrators.
At the very least, the fact of this event taking place seems newsworthy.
Whether it is appropriate to let someone solicit funds via this list is
another matter (but one that Pirkko didn't mention in his article). I
would be interested in knowing how others might feel about any of the
above.
As for the specifics of Pirkko's criticisms, it doesn't seem logical or
fair to suggest that because Bosnia has been so strife torn casts doubt
on the meaningfulness or value of the efforts people are making to go to
Medjugorje or the hope they are investing in the events happening there.
I suppose that one answer to Pirkko's question about how this alleged
apparation "could further world peace when it could not/would not
prevent the awful bloodletting of the former Yugoslavia" would be to
observe that peace can come only when people want it badly enough to
overcome the tendencies that cause them to fight with one another. No
supernatural intervention can automatically solve the problems or the
way people react to those problems - but we all know that certain events
and people can become "turning points" - sort of like crystal "seeds"
around which subsequent events take shape. We have historical examples,
like the end of apartheid in South Africa, or the rejection of colonial
government in India, or the ending of discriminatory laws in the United
States that came about as the result of certain events and with the help
of certain people that/who became symbols of change and that served a
"pivotal" role (kind of like a fulcrum that, together with the leverage
of public action provided something around which energy could coalesce).
To judge a pivotal person or event by the fact of the turmoil going on
all around (like the apartheid that continued when Nelson Mandela was
jailed or the colonial rule that continued while Mahatma Gandhi was
attempting to organize non-violent protests or the fact that Martin
Luther King was assasinated while he was attempting to lead people to
a different kind of future) seems very unfair and illogical and contrary
to the lesson of history. Change doesn't generally take place overnight.
However, it is not clear at this point (at least not to me) just what is
happening in Medjugorje or that it is specifically relevant to the struggles
of indigenous peoples. For me, this invitation represents an opportunity
for a certain healing to take place. As I tried to suggest previously, the
history of relations between people claiming to speak in the name of Jesus
and indigenous peoples is not exactly a pleasant one to study. There have
been terrible atrocities and more slow and gradual acts of cultural damage
and destruction committed by Christian missionaries, so, as I said before,
to simply offer Native people a chance to find peace by accepting a theology
that is foreign to their own traditions and experience would be to re-read a
sad and tragic chapter of world history. I feel that if there is to be a
genuine peace, it has to come with some acknowledgement of the terrible
wrongs done by badly misguided people who claimed to speak in the name of
Christianity.
The "elements in this phenomenon that suggest something real is going on"
that I mentioned previously and that Pirkko questions me about can best
be found by reading a book such as the one I cited previously (Mary Craig's
_Spark from Heaven_, 1988). I'm sure there must be many other books out
there that, like Mary's, do not take a position on just *what* is happening
in Medjugorge or whether it has much or anything to do with things people
might believe about it all, but just try to report as carefully as possible
what has been documented as having happened and that tries not to slip over
into a rhetoric of the "faithful." It has been about eight years since I
read her book, but I agree with the comment found on the back cover:
Certainties will not be found in _Spark from Heaven_. Author Mary
Craig, whose BBC television film on Medjugorje aroused widespread
interest, has written a balanced and objective book that provides
an open-ended study of this fascinating affair and attempts to
"unravel the various controversies that envelop it."
Medjugorje is a compelling event--conceivably the greatest happening
of the 20th century, or possibly its most persuasive hoax. _Spark
from Heaven_ is destined to become the classic volume on this
phenomenon of Medjugorje.
As for the "prophecies" recorded on Scott's Web pages, Scott will have to
speak for himself. I spent some time on the weekend looking over what he
has done, and admit that I don't know what to think or feel. I agree with
Pirkko that there is a certain "tabloid" news kind of taste to much of what
is to be found there - much talk about the end of the world as we know it
if we don't change our ways, and about prophecies connected with terrible
destruction and of the "end times," etc. Again, I don't know what to make
of such claims, but I do have to agree with the observation that the way of
life promoted by industrialized, "developed" countries seems to be leading
us all to some pretty terrible outcomes. We all know that we cannot go on
consuming the world's resources at the rate we are at present, and we know
that the kind of increased population that is already inevitable must surely
lead to some extreme problems in the fairly near-term future, whether things
will improve in the long term (as some claim) or not as the result of new
technologies (there is a debate on this subject now raging among economists
and environmentalists, among others). And I think it is clear to some of
us that the mentality that is guiding many of us - the "more is better"
and "devil take the hindmost" and extreme forms of materialism that are
all around us - cannot really sustain us and must be replaced by something
else or things will become ever more chaotic. Can anything short of a
miracle - or a terribly tragedy of enormous proportions - cause us to
seriously re-evaluate the way we are living life as societies and get us
to take a look at other ways of doing things in which we regain a respect
for our home the earth and find a more harmonious way of living and being?
My own view is that it is important for each of us to do what we can, and
that different people may feel "called" to express themselves in different
ways. For some, there is a great appeal to what others of us - those who
are more highly educated and socialized into thinking and behaving in certain
ways, perhaps - would find distasteful and not worthy of our consideration.
And yet it seems that education and socialization into more "refined" ways
of thinking and behaving can also insulate us from the stark realities that
others can see and feel and smell very directly and immediately, even if
they may sometimes express their thoughts and feelings and reactions in
ways that others find illogical and contemptible.
What are we to make of such things as apparitions that induce a trancelike
state in the percipients (young children who have no motivation to falsify
their experience and no signs of mental illness) - a state in which they
become immune to sensations of pain? What are we to make of miraculous
cures of people who skilled medical specialists had diagnosed as incurable?
There may well be other explanations of these things than the "faithful"
who flock in droves to Medjugorje would suggest. Whether they see Mary
the mother of Jesus, or the "Buffalo Calf Woman" - or nothing at all,
there is something happening here (in addition to a certain amount of hype
and superstition that always surrounds such things). There is a sense of
hope being born in people who had lost hope. Perhaps this phenomenon can
be described in psychological terms as the very *result* of this sense of
lost hope - a projection that results from war-ravaged psyches. But it
is important to point out that the apparitions began in 1981, long before
there was any sign of immanent war in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
I do not feel that I am giving "special weight" to this subject - but I
admit that it holds a special fascination for me, as does anything that
would seem to offer some hope to provide or at least help define a turning
point that could become the basis of a new way of relating to one another
and to our natural world. Whether or not I go on this trip, I will follow
with interest many things that are happening in our world today that would
seem to offer some promise of helping us recover a different way of thinking
and feeling and doing things. I don't believe in "putting all our eggs in
one basket," by any means, but I do feel that it is "better to light a candle
than to curse the darkness."
I would like to see a careful and methodical study of many things that, by
the standards of conventional "objective" science are unworthy of serious
attention (e.g. spiritual healing or "spontaneous remission"). In fact, I'd
like to see a re-definition of science itself so that it can more honestly
incorporate the subjective side of life that is there whether we like it or
not. I'd like to see more respect given to traditional practices of Native
people that have sustained those people and their cultures for thousands of
years and can offer much to all of us. (And I'd like to see proper compen-
sation made to Native people for the sharing of indigenous knowledge and an
understanding and acceptance for the witholding of that knowledge when it
is deemed appropriate to do so.)
I do not plan on making this subject a major focus of attention here on
NATIVE-L, but I am open to having a brief discussion on the subject in
this forum if anyone is interested in doing so - and I would welcome
comments sent to me ("gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us"), though I doubt I'll have
time to respond at length due to the press of many responsibilities.
Thanks for listening.
Gary