A Great Flowering Tree in the Center of a Hoop
One of my greatest regrets with my father’s passing was that I was never able to truly come out to him as gay.
Maka Black Elk (Oglala Lakota) is the Executive Director for Truth and Healing at Red Cloud Indian School in Pine Ridge, SD. He first graduated from the University of San Francisco and then earned his Master's degrees in Peace & Human Rights Education at Columbia University’s Teachers College and in Educational Leadership from the University of Notre Dame. Maka was a teacher and an educational administrator at Red Cloud before taking on his current role. Maka brings a passion for interreligious dialogue to his work. He served as the chairperson of the American Indian Catholic Schools Network for four years and has advocated for truth and healing in Catholic ministries and schools serving Indigenous peoples.
One of my greatest regrets with my father’s passing was that I was never able to truly come out to him as gay.
Remember that the Holy Family themselves were not the standard or “normal” family either.
The wooden bowl tells us the same message. To be rich in what matters to God is to share ourselves and our belongings. To take our abundance and offer it to others.
As Holy Week descends upon us, I think of Jesus’ words in the context of a wave of legislation in the U.S. that is attempting to attack the most vulnerable in our LGBTQ community.
In my Lakota culture we use a particular phrase when we pray, “Mitakuye Oyasin.” Roughly translated it means, “All our relations.”
New Ways Ministry – 4012 29th Street – Mount Rainier, Maryland 20712 – Telephone: (301) 277-5674 – Email: [email protected]
Contributions to New Ways Ministry are tax-deductible under Section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code.