An Update on Healing Haunted Histories Work
Last week we watched a zoom conversation with Deb Haaland (left), U.S. Secretary of the Interior, entitled “Telling the American Story on Our Public Lands” (see the recording of this hour-long program here). The first Native American to serve as a cabinet secretary, Haaland is a member of Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico. Her comments outlined the work of the Indian Board School Initiative, including a Road to Healing tour, reminding listeners that we all need to do the work of decolonization. This was an inspirational way for Elaine to begin a major “second push” around the work of Healing Haunted Histories. (Photo, Native Max Magazine.)
At the conclusion of our BKI24 in February, a longtime collaborator offered a matching grant of up to $5,000 for HHH work. We have raised over $2,700 to date toward the match. Meanwhile, Elaine has been busy:
- She and Rose Berger met with Re-Calling our Ancestors, a group of younger colleagues who are doing parallel work and who have engaged with HHH;
- Elaine and Ched spoke to Sr. Sheila Smith’s class at St. Paul’s University Ottawa, engaging her graduate students. Sheila then facilitated a panel on HHH at the Canadian Theological Society Annual Conference, where three of her doctoral students (an Oblate, a Franciscan, and an Anglican) spoke about the impact of the book on their work, as did Christine Jamieson of the Nlaka’pamux Nation Tribal Council, B.C.;
- Elaine had a lovely conversation with women from a Mennonite family spread across Canada who read HHH together;
- Elaine is tracking Jason Villegas’ progress in developing an HHH curriculum for youth; he’s now interviewing Indigenous leaders from North Carolina for this highly interactive resource;
- The Nuns and Nones’ Land Justice Project incorporated the HHH framework into their study materials thanks to Brenna Cussen of St. Isidore Catholic Worker;
- And we took another step in learning about Indigenous culture this summer under the mentorship of Harry & Germaine Lafond, which Elaine describes in last week’s blog.
Meanwhile, HHH continues to be used outside of our circles:
- Rev. Erin Thomas of Trinity Lutheran Church in Edmonton, AB wrote a great review in Consensus, vol 44 (for more reviews go here);
- Rev. Eileen Gebbie ofBangor Theological Seminary offered a six week course entitled Healing Haunted Histories: A Case Study in Native, Settler and Queer America;
- Wing Yi Wong of Emmanuel College, University of Toronto, draws on our work in “Unearthing the Disturbing Ghosts of Postcolonial Lands That Linger After the Sermon” in Homiletics, Vol. 49, No. 1 (2024);
As we gear up for the fall campaign, we are pleased to announce that Elaine has formed a working group, which includes Mary Watkins (CA) and Lynne Caldwell and Steve Taylor (NC). This group will help us with the following workplan:
- complete a Facilitator Guide and/or Participant workbook;
- finish short videos as another resource;
- and do the groundwork to produce an audio book! (Elaine has had fun conversations with sound engineer and musician friends who are encouraging us to use musical overlays, which would fit so beautifully with Songlines!) She is making a short list of colleagues to read parts of the book for the audio recording.
We are excited that beginning in October, Steve will come on to work part-time with BCM to deepen these learning tools and broaden the reach of our decolonization work. And in November, Elaine will travel to Saskatoon (Ched will join online) to teach a week long intensive for Mennonite Church Saskatchewan through Canadian Mennonite University extension.
Which brings us back to our matching grant challenge. We’re halfway there, but need your help to meet our goal by Indigenous Peoples’ Day, October 14th!! (Use the donation button on our support page). Thanks for your help to resource this second HHH push!
