I have gone back to Brueggemann's *The Land* lately. It's a good—though by no means great—book. For even longer I have been slowly working through *We Are the Land: A History of Native California*, by Damon B. Akins and William J. Bauer, Jr. About a week ago I bought the audiobook of *The Lakota Ghost Dance of 1890*, by Rani-Henrik Andersson, and have listened to it for a few minutes before going to sleep every night since. Just this week I discovered the *First Nation's Version: An Indigenous Translation of the New Testament*. (Notice a pattern?)
I believe that, just as nobody will understand the gospel without understanding the importance and precariousness of the body in ancient Israel, nobody will understand it without understanding the entanglement of that body in the land. (For example, Genesis 1:1 could be translated, "In the beginning God created the sky and the land.") We'll not very well understand either of these crucially important points by reading the standard translations of the Bible. I believe that the Indigenous People of the Americas are poised to wipe the scales from the eyes of Euro-pale churchy people like me. A colonial and colonizing church must die out to itself and sit quietly at the dusty feet of those they thought they could intern in "reservations." You who have ears to hear, listen to what the Great Spirit is saying to the churches!