Leaving Church - Barbara Brown Taylor [71]
I admired the poverty of the community, which could barely scrape up enough cash to cover expenses, much less to offer gas money to honored guests from far away. While this worked a hardship on those with no other income, it also meant that no time was spent on capital improvements or annual budget requests. When the Sun Dance arbor needed repair, some guys headed to the woods with chainsaws, and when the porta-potty bill came due, there were usually enough one-dollar bills on the blanket to pay it. The food was a miracle of near-biblical proportions, as people showed up with enough venison stew, deep-fried turkey, corn on the cob, and fry bread to feed those who had come with nothing but a half-eaten Snickers bar.
On the last day of the first Sun Dance on Indian Ridge Farm, I carried a big pan of blackberry cobbler down to the grounds for the closing feast. It was my first appearance and I was shy about showing up for the last couple of hours only. Some of the people who greeted me had been there for more than a week, praying all day and sleeping only a few hours on the ground at night. More than a dozen Sun Dancers who had not touched food or water in four days were looking forward to their first meal. While my clean clothes and unmuddied feet marked me as a gatecrasher, no one treated me like one. People came up to thank me for letting them use the land, for giving them such a good place to pray. Most of them were crying as they said these things to me, which helped me register how hardened I had become, how used to saying similar things to other people without letting them get anywhere near my heart.
I set my pan down and watched while the Sun Dancers cleared the arbor. A band of muddy children wove through the crowd, hugging the knees of so many adults that it was impossible to tell who their real parents were. Most of the women wore bright shawls over long skirts. No one wore shoes. The smell of the damp, flattened pasture rose straight up from the ground. Near the south gate of the arbor, a circle of spent singers sat around the now-silent drum, smoking cigarettes and telling stories in low, hoarse voices. Right behind them, an old woman with a long gray braid sat in an aluminum folding chair with a young man kneeling by her side.
Watching them all, I understood how much I had missed. I was also glad to be there, especially when I first caught sight of Ed. He looked a thousand years old, with a bad sunburn and a four-day beard. The word wizened was invented for how he looked, all except his face. His face leaked light, as if every ray of sun that had landed on him that week had seeded his pores. Ed shone, and when he looked at me I felt the beam hit me in the chest across fifty feet of wet pasture. Then he was gone, and people started heading toward the arbor with their big pots full of fragrant stews and vegetables.
I fetched my cobbler and put it on the blanket full of desserts. Then Cleto called everyone together and said what a powerful Sun Dance it had been. No one should ever forget what a privilege it was to pray like that, he said, or how good God was to hear our prayers. He talked about how certain people had been broken by their prayers and put back together again. He told us we had nothing that belonged to us but what we gave to God and that God gave everything back to us again so that we could share it with one another. He told us that we were all related—to each other, to the trees under which we stood, to the ancestors whose bones lay under our feet, to the birds of the air—and that it was way past time to act as if we were. Some people said “Aho” as he spoke, while others shifted from foot to bare foot with their eyes on the food.
I felt like someone who had strolled into the feeding of the five thousand on a casual walk around the lake.