Anyone and everyone who lives on the great northern prairies knows that winter is the harshest season of the year. Deep snow and intense cold combine with wind to punish the land and its beings with blizzard after blizzard. In a flat place with few rolling hills and few trees to block the wind, it is a dangerous and sometimes deadly time. There are four ways to survive: Some, like many of the birds, simply fly to warmer places and return in the spring. There are a few, like bears, frogs, lizards, and snakes, who find a snug place and sleep through the entire winter. Everyone else makes preparations through the summer and autumn either by laying away stores of food and improving their dwellings or eating and eating and to fatten up their bodies for when food is scarce. In one way or another, everyone does their best to survive until spring.
However, there was one being who never prepared for winter, and there were many reasons he did not. For one, he was afraid of hard work. For another, he thought he was smarter than he really was and could use his wits to survive. As a result, he had a hard life, always on the edge of starvation, with no place to call his own.
This being was Iktomi (eek-toh-me). Many of the prairie dwellers felt he really did not belong on the prairie lands. As a matter of fact, it was hard to know where he belonged. No one was sure where he had come from. There were rumors that he and his twin brother had fallen from the sky. Their mother, Moon, had grown tired of their misbehaving, so she cast them down to the earth. There was no way to know what kind of beings they had been in the sky, but on the earth Iktomi was a small, weak, and always disheveled little creature, while his twin brother, Iya, was a giant and the complete opposite of Iktomi. They were alike in one way, however: both were unpredictable.
So it was that one day late in the autumn, skinny, hungry little Iktomi sat in an old hillside den, shivering in the cold wind. The fire he had built the night before had long since gone out, because he had not gathered enough firewood. He had eaten the last morsel of food he had stolen from a raven. Prospects were not good, to say the least, not only for this day but because winter was nearly here.
He crawled as far back into the deep as he could, to get out of the wind. Days ago he had traded away the only robe he had for a bit of food. Now he wished he had not as the wind pushed its way into the shallow cave. Suddenly he heard a slight noise outside. Iktomi held his breath, but the noise did not sound like it was made by a large being, like a bear or a long-tailed cat or a wolf. Taking a chance, he poked his head out.
“I was wondering if you were still here,” said a friendly voice. It was Digs, the prairie dog. He and his people had great villages of underground dens. He carried a large bundle of seeds to add to his supply of winter food. Iktomi eyed the bundle. Though seeds were not among his favorite foods, any food was good when one did not have any.
Digs saw where Iktomi’s beady little eyes were gazing. “How are things with you?” he asked. “Are you ready for winter?” The last question he asked with a bit of a smirk on his face, because he knew the answer.
“I am still in the planning stage,” replied Iktomi.
“Yes, well,” chuckled the prairie dog, “I am afraid that circumstances are far past that. I can feel winter’s presence in this autumn wind. My family and I are still busy. We want to take advantage of these last days before the snow comes.”
“Might you have some room in your village?” ventured Iktomi, hopefully.
“I am afraid even our largest dens are much too small for you,” Digs said, secretly thankful for that reality. Iktomi was a bottomless hole when it came to food. Though he felt pity for him, the prairie dog knew that Iktomi’s situation was of his own making. Everyone knew that winter always came, and everyone prepared one way or another. Everyone, that is, except for this forlorn creature who sat shivering in the wind.
“There is nothing good about winter,” Iktomi spat, as he shivered and looked up at the gray skies.
“Not true,” countered the prairie dog. “Our people make the best of it, like many others do. We spend our days listening to our grandparents tell stories, and we eat the food we have stored. The winds may howl above us and the snow may fall heavily, but deep inside our dens we are snug and warm.”
“That is easy for you to say,” growled Iktomi.
“Because we have prepared,” Digs reminded him, patiently.
Iktomi watched the prairie dog ambling away with the bundle of seeds on his back toward his warm and snug dwelling. He kicked at the ground. Why had he not prepared? Of course, he had asked himself the same question last autumn. With a deep sigh, he decided to go to one of the villages of the Two-Legged People. Perhaps they would take him in. There was nothing to lose by asking.
Along the way he came to a deep pond and found Slaps, the beaver, patching his lodge with slabs of mud.
“Greetings to you, Iktomi,” sang out the beaver. “How goes it with you?”
“I am on my way to see the two-leggeds,” Iktomi replied.
“Then you have a long walk,” warned Slaps. “They have moved to a valley a long way from here, to their winter camp.”
It was not news Iktomi wanted to hear. This was not the kind of a day to make a long journey, especially when he was not certain the two-leggeds would take him in. “No matter,” he lied, “I was also planning on looking at a den above the river.”
“Good journey to you,” said Slaps, too busy working to watch Iktomi leaving.
Dejectedly, Iktomi trudged across the meadows and hills until he was too tired to walk any more. Along the way he had picked the last bits of fruit from several berry thickets. But they were small and bitter and far from enough. Not knowing what else to do, he found shelter out of the wind on the lee side of a bank.
A cold sun hung behind a thin covering of clouds, making everything seem colder. Iktomi sighed deeply. There was nothing for him to do but make the long trek to the village of the Two-Legged People. There were times when they were kind to him, but mostly they ridiculed him. He knew they referred to him as the Tricky One. But he would endure just about anything for food and a warm place to sleep over the winter. Who was he trying to fool? He would do anything not to starve and freeze.
Suddenly the sound of the wind was different. Iktomi instinctively curled himself into a ball, not knowing what to expect. He certainly was not prepared for a gray form that flashed past him and came to earth in the grass nearby. A large goose with a black head and neck and a white throat. It looked around and immediately saw Iktomi.
“Who are you?” Iktomi asked, relieved that it was not one of the sky hunters, like the great eagle.
“I am called Traveler,” replied the goose, his voice resonant and clear. “I am a scout for some of my people. We are the last to go south.”
Iktomi knew about geese. He had seen many of them in long lines flying overhead, practically filling the skies. They flew south in the autumn and north in the spring.
“What are you doing here?” the Tricky One wondered.
“Looking for a place to rest for the night and find some food. We have a long journey to make,” Traveler replied.
“Tell me,” said Iktomi. “Where do your people go for the winter?”
“Far, far to the south,” the goose told him. “We spend the winter along the great water. There it is warm, even hot, and there is plenty of food.”
“My, my,” was all Iktomi could say. “Would that I could fly, so I could go there, too.”
The big gray goose looked at the skinny, unkempt being huddled against the bank. He had never seen anyone or anything so forlorn. “Do you live here?” he asked.
“Yes,” admitted Iktomi. “I do.”
“As far as I know, prairie dwellers prepare for winter,” said the goose. “I assume you have done so, since you live here.”
“Whether I am prepared or not,” countered Iktomi, sidestepping the truth, “I would much prefer spending the winter where it is warm and where there is plenty of food.”
“Then you are welcome to accompany us,” offered Traveler.
“Very kind of you, but, alas, I cannot fly,” Iktomi whined. “You are born to it, I am not.”
“Have you tried?” the goose wanted to know.
“No,” Iktomi said. “Flying has never entered my mind.”
“Then perhaps it is time you give it some thought,” the big bird suggested.
“You are mocking me,” protested the Tricky One. “I am not made to fly. The Creator gave you wings.”
“True,” agreed the goose. “But when we are still small, our mothers teach us to fly. More than feathers is necessary. One must also have the will.”
“That is all very well for you,” Iktomi insisted. “A bird mustering up the will to fly is one thing, but for me it is impossible.”
“Then what have you got to lose by trying?” Traveler reasoned. “Unless you have a snug dwelling and an endless supply of food waiting for you.”
The goose had no way of knowing Iktomi’s real situation, of course, but the Tricky One winced. Perhaps this bird is magic somehow, he thought. Or he is teasing me so he can laugh.
“I know not why you are telling me I should learn how to fly,” he said, suspiciously. “But I can think of nothing more useless. It would be a waste of effort.”
The goose turned and gazed at the landscape, appearing to lose interest in the conversation. He sighed. “Just as well,” he said. “Flying is not for fools or the weak of heart. Besides, I need to find food for my friends and relatives who will be here soon.” He walked down the slope. “I cannot waste my time trying to teach you to do anything you do not want to do. Be well.”
“I would not know how to begin!” shouted Iktomi.
The goose did not stop but glanced back. “I will be here at dawn tomorrow,” he called out. “If you want to learn to fly, be here.”
That evening Iktomi surprised himself with his own industriousness. He managed to dig a shelter, with his bare hands, into a cut bank, just wide enough to fit him and deep enough to block most of the wind. Then he gathered grass, brush, and twigs enough for a small fire. Though he was starving he did manage to ward off the night’s cold. A last little flicker of flame sputtered out just as dawn broke over the eastern horizon.
True to his word the goose descended from the gray sky and landed near the bank. Iktomi stiffly left his shelter and approached the waiting bird.
“This is a good beginning,” said the goose. “You have exceeded my expectations simply by being here.”
After two days without food Iktomi wondered if his ability to reason was weakened, because he heard himself say, “I want to learn how to fly and go south where it is warm.”
“Then I trust you have had a good night’s rest,” cried the goose. “If you are not flying by the time the sun goes down again, you will spend the winter here.”
Traveler led the trembling Iktomi to the top of a hill with a long downward slope. Near a knot of bushes was a strange-looking object. Two, as a matter of fact. Two thin poles with long goose-wing feathers attached in a line, side by side.
“My friends and relatives and I donated two feathers each, one from each wing,” Traveler said, pointing to the feathered poles. “We will tie one to each arm.”
Iktomi felt just a little foolish as he stood at the top of the hill, a feathered pole attached to each arm. “What do I do now?” he asked with some trepidation.
“Two things, at once,” advised the goose. “You will run down this hill as fast as you can. As you are running you must move your arms up and down. The faster you run and the faster you move your arms, the better chance you have of lifting yourself into the sky.”
“Lifting?”
“Yes, it is precisely how we do it. How any bird does it.”
A wave of doubt coursed through Iktomi’s thin frame and appeared in his close-set eyes, not unnoticed by the big goose. He stepped up and faced the Tricky One, eye to eye.
“Do you know what faith is?” he asked.
“Faith?”
“Yes, faith.”
“What does faith have to do with feathers and flying?” Iktomi demanded.
“Everything,” replied the goose, resolutely. “Faith is just as necessary as feathers. We gave you the feathers, but we cannot give you the faith. That is for you to find.”
“Where do I find it?”
Fortunately, Traveler was a wise old goose, and patient. “What do you believe in?” he asked. “Do you believe in right, or goodness, perhaps kindness? Or do you believe in taking care of only yourself?”
“All I want to do is fly and go south with you, where it is warm,” stammered Iktomi.
“Indeed. That is why you need faith. Faith enables you to believe. You must believe that you can fly, that you will fly.”
Iktomi looked at the feathered poles tied to his arms, and then down the long slope. “But something tells me there is also some effort to be made,” he said, fearfully.
“As I said, run down the hill, flap your wings, believe that you will fly, and lift yourself into the sky.”
Iktomi laughed though nothing was funny. “Last winter I nearly froze in my den,” he recalled. “And nearly starved.” After a deep sigh, he lifted his feathered arms high and began to run.
“Move them up and down, like wings!” Traveler called out.
Iktomi had never run faster than a trot in his entire life, at least not since he had been cast down to the earth. His spindly legs were not accustomed to such sudden and strenuous activity. Moving his arms like wings was not easy either. Neither was performing those two simple movements together. He was managing to coordinate them when he stumbled over a bristly soapweed. In the next heartbeat he plowed a furrow in the dirt with his face.
A sudden errant thought flashed through his mind, before his anger exploded. Flying was above the Earth, not in it.
Iktomi rose on his trembling legs spitting dirt and shaking his head. A stream of indistinguishable sounds erupted from his mouth. What he assumed was a show of righteous rage was not perceived as such by the goose.
Traveler had never seen anything so comical in his life, but he stifled his laughter and endeavored to look wise and caring.
“These things happen,” he counseled. “I recall falling before I was able to fly for the first time.”
“That … that is comforting,” spat the Tricky One. “What do I do now?”
“Come back to the top and try again,” said the goose.
Iktomi was about to protest when he saw the first snowflake float past his face. In an instant he envisioned the entire prairie covered in snow as far as the eye could see. Somewhere, far, far to the south was a land where there was no snow. A warm land.
With renewed energy he hurried back to the top of the hill.
“Now,” advised the goose. “It is not necessary to do anything different. Run, move your arms, and believe.”
“Run, move my arms, and believe,” Iktomi repeated, though not with much conviction.
“Remember,” Traveler encouraged, “believing is doing, not the other way around.”
Iktomi nearly reached the bottom of the slope before he tripped once again. This time he did not fall as hard, and he thought he felt a bit of lift, but he could not be certain. After he picked himself up and loosed an exasperated sigh, he trudged back to the top.
He did not fall the next time, or the next, or the next. Each time he climbed back to the top, however, it was harder and harder to do.
“You are doing everything right,” Traveler pointed out. “However, I do not think you believe that you can actually fly.”
“I think you are right,” admitted Iktomi. “All I can think about is not falling.”
“This time,” the goose persisted, “imagine yourself flying. Imagine it. Think of nothing else. Imagine yourself above the ground, above the trees.”
Iktomi sighed. “I will, I will.”
And so he did, and so he flew.
In that first instant it was like a dream. He was flying, he was above the ground. The bottom of the hill seemed to be falling away, then he realized that he was getting higher—and higher! Realization nearly gave way to disbelief. He reacted by moving his arms faster, and recovered. He was flying.
Astonishment and disbelief nibbled at the edges of his awareness, but he allowed himself to accept the reality of the moment. Then he heard a rush of wind and saw a big gray goose next to him. Traveler was smiling proudly.
“What do we do now?” Iktomi shouted.
“Practice!” replied the goose. “Keep moving your arms so you can climb higher. Then we will simply glide. Look ahead, not down, and just do what I do.”
Iktomi pushed back the fear nipping at him and mimicked every movement of his fellow flier. Before he knew it the land below him became larger, and he realized he was higher than the tallest tree or the highest hill.
I am flying. I am flying, he told himself over and over. For some reason he was afraid to close his eyes, but found he had to squint against the wind on his face.
Following Traveler’s every lead, Iktomi learned how to bank and make a turn and bend his lower legs up to climb higher. Moment after moment he gained more confidence. Then he began to worry about getting back to the ground, knowing that he could not fly all day without getting tired. He shouted his concern to Traveler.
“Landing is simply gliding down,” the goose said. “The big test will be to get back into the air again. Let us try.”
Iktomi’s first landing was a little sudden, mainly because he glided in at too sharp an angle. But he did manage. After a moment’s rest, Traveler led him to the top of a hill for another takeoff.
The goose had been right all along. One simply had to believe that one could fly. So it was that Iktomi managed to get off the ground again. Soon enough he was high above the land. As a matter of fact he was beginning to feel very pleased with himself. He was enjoying the view immensely.
Suddenly they were surrounded by numerous geese—Traveler’s friends and relatives. “We must now turn and head south,” the big goose said. “Just get in line behind me.”
Iktomi took his place behind Traveler. Looking around he realized that he was now part of a great arrowhead-shaped formation, the kind he had seen only from the ground before. His joy knew no bounds. The air rushing past his thin little body was cold, but he knew that he was headed for warmer climes. He could not wait.
The landscape passed beneath. Hills, meadows, creeks, prairie, trees, and grass. In the sky around them were snowflakes. Winter was indeed coming soon. As he settled in and began to feel more at ease, Iktomi realized that there was a line between not believing he was actually flying and believing it—accepting the reality of what was happening. The secret to staying in the air was to believe, to have faith.
All too soon, his faith was tested. Above a river they were approaching a large village of two-leggeds.
As two-leggeds do, they paused in whatever they were doing to watch the long lines of geese pass overhead. It was not too long before one of the two-leggeds saw something unusual in the sight. Among the geese was a strange creature. A strange creature that was, of all things, Iktomi!
Word spread quickly in the village, and soon crowds were watching, pointing at the non-goose flying with the geese.
Iktomi and the geese were passing directly over the village. The Tricky One was continuing to marvel at the view of everything from the sky. It was a perspective he never imagined. But how could he? Flying was for the birds and a few insects.
Iktomi looked down and saw the village and recognized the dwellings. They looked round from his perspective. He also saw the two-leggeds looking up and pointing. He had been in a village before and knew the dwellings to be snug. But he had to leave, in the interest of his own safety, because he had been less than honest. It was a memory Iktomi did not want to revisit.
Then he heard laughter, and voices.
“Look! It’s that skinny little trickster, Iktomi! He is flying with the geese! Who does he think he is?”
For some reason Iktomi heard the laughter and the voices clearly. He looked to his left and then the right. The geese were paying no mind to the sounds rising from the village. But the voices rang in his head. Voices laughing, at him.
He looked ahead at the land that stretched away as far as he could see. Yet, he could not make the voices go away.
“Look! Iktomi is flying! That is hard to believe!”
It was almost as if a hand he could not see reached up from the ground, and grabbed him by the ankles. Traveler looked back and saw Iktomi wavering in the air. The wise old goose quickly knew what was happening.
“Do not pay attention to them,” he warned. “They cannot believe what they are seeing.”
But it was too late. The thought, This is too good to be true had been lurking in the back of his mind, a tiny grain of doubt that Iktomi had been able to ignore. In an instant it became a boulder. He felt himself falling.
Iktomi screamed and flapped his arms desperately but all he managed to do was slow his descent. For one awful, sad moment, he saw the V-shaped lines of geese above him. Thud! He bounced on a grassy hillside. Every part of his skinny little body was in pain and he had to struggle to catch his breath.
The geese circled back and descended to help him, but the two-leggeds from the village were already on the scene of Iktomi’s crash. Traveler and his companions had no choice but to fly away. There were too many among the two-leggeds who thought of geese as a delicacy. And some of them who had Iktomi surrounded carried their hunting weapons. The geese had to leave Iktomi behind.
The two-leggeds looked at the little trickster. After several moments they decided that Iktomi would probably survive his fall, and that—miraculously—his body was still in one piece.
“He has the luck of fools,” someone declared.
“What shall we do with him?” another asked.
“Leave him,” came the suggestion. “He is nothing but trouble.”
“Wait,” said an older man. “Several years ago he told us where to find a herd of buffalo, in a hidden valley. So we gave him food. When we went to the valley, all we found was old and dried buffalo droppings. No buffalo had been there for years. He fooled us, and sneaked away before we came back.”
“Yes, I remember,” said a second man. “I think he needs to pay us for the food we gave him.”
So it was decided. Iktomi would spend the winter in the village working off his debt. He was taken to the lodge of an old woman, a widow. She was a good woman and lived alone, so there was no one to help her. Until Iktomi was given to her.
The good thing was that Iktomi had a place to spend the winter, where he was warm and had food. The difficult part of it was he had to gather firewood and keep the old woman’s fire going. When a hunter gave the old woman meat, it was Iktomi’s task to cut it up and cook it. Then he had to haul water from the river. After the river froze and the ice was thick, it was harder and harder to cut a hole and keep it open.
Escape was impossible. Boys on the verge of manhood were assigned to watch Iktomi, one at a time. But as hard as he had to work, Iktomi had no intention of leaving. There was nothing for him out there; no food, no shelter—nothing.
The old woman was kind to him. She thanked him for his hard work and told him stories. Every night when his chores were finally done and he could curl up beneath his warm robe, Iktomi thought of flying. It seemed impossible to him that he had actually flown. He had kept some of the wing feathers the geese had given him, and he certainly remembered what the land looked like from the sky. It was a hard thing to believe.
Spring came, as it always did. New grass came up out of the earth and new leaves to the trees. One day Iktomi heard the high, clarion call of geese. Looking up he saw many, many lines of them flying in their arrowhead formations. He wondered what lands they were returning from, and if his friend Traveler was among them.
Elders of the village declared that Iktomi had paid his debt, and said he could go. The old woman gave him a bundle of food and sent him on his way.
Iktomi forgot the old woman as soon as he was over the hill behind the village. He was only worried what would happen when his food ran out. It was a worry not new to him. He knew that some women from the village were planting corn along the river bottoms. In the autumn there would be ears of corn ready for picking. This would be something to remember when the hungry times came, as they surely would.
He did not know where he was going, but he was not in a hurry to get there. There was one thing he was absolutely certain of. He would never fly again.
Needless to say, he never did.
Wowicala
(woh-wee-jah-lah)
Faith
FLYING AND OTHER POSSIBILITIES
In most dictionaries, the first two definitions of the word faith are: confidence or trust in a person or thing and belief that is not based on proof.
The first definition implies that proof is necessary to some extent. We have faith that the sun will rise, for example, because we have seen it do so all of our lives. Or investors have faith that the stock market will behave in a certain way when a given set of factors come into play, determining whether it will be a “bear” or “bull” market. During World War II the Allied nations had faith they could win the war in Europe against Hitler and in the Pacific against Japan, likely based on the fact that they had defeated Germany in World War I. They had done it before and could probably do it again.
Faith in some contexts has become synonymous with religion, but of the two definitions only the second hints at this. Most people who are part of an organized religion (or an unorganized one, for that matter) believe in the existence of an all-knowing, all-powerful deity, though they have no proof that such a deity exists. They take it on faith that one does.
As a child I had faith in my grandparents. I knew that they would take care of me, although neither of them ever said that taking care of me was their responsibility. I knew I belonged with them. At that age I had no idea, of course, what religion was, although they took me to church on Sundays. Church was for me simply an activity my grandparents participated in with other people. They told me it was necessary for me to go with them and behave respectfully and be polite to the white man who came to pray. While in church I did what my grandparents asked, for a number of reasons. They had never put me in a situation where I felt threatened, uncomfortable, or embarrassed. I was not so analytical about circumstances at the age of five and six, of course, but I did know or feel that everything was good. Therefore there was no reason to doubt my grandparents.
Faith in my grandparents involved more than their ability or obligation to care for me. It took on added dimensions over time. As my ability to think and discern grew, I began to see them as two individuals with different habits and views, but basically operating—living life—from the same set of values: honesty, compassion, humility, generosity, and tolerance. They did not once invoke religion as the only way to live or look at life. Nor did their actions and statements ever approach what could be described as pious.
They were both members of the Episcopal Church, but what I find compelling now, from the perspective of my 67 years, is that their values reflected cultural influence more than Christian doctrine. Their interaction with the community (the village, as it were) was a reflection of being Lakota rather than being Christian. Something that I could not ascertain when I was a boy was that those Lakota people who adopted Christianity did so for one primary reason: many teachings and beliefs espoused by Christianity happened to coincide with Lakota beliefs. Among them were respect for elders, as in “honor thy father and thy mother,” and another was the idea of sacrificing for others, which was represented in the Sun Dance. Therefore, in my early teen years I was confused when white priests and other white Episcopalians implied or stated outright that following the teachings of Jesus Christ—thus being Episcopalian—was preferable to being Lakota. In other words, I had to let go of being Lakota and embrace Christianity. I never got that same message from my grandparents, either in so many words or through their actions. It was important to them that I learned respect for other people (especially elders) and practiced the values they themselves lived by. While those values are not exclusive to the Lakota culture, neither are they exclusive to Christianity. It follows, then, to my way of thinking that faith is not exclusive to religion.
However any dictionary might define faith, all of us who include it in our philosophies of life have our own insight into what it is. Faith is one of those factors in life that cannot be generalized, because it rises out of experience and what we believe, what life has taught us. Thus it takes different forms.
People frequently comment that “faith” has helped them through a difficult situation. Obviously it is easier to make such a statement when the situation turns out positively, because the outcome seems to support the power of faith. But not every situation turns out well for everyone. The same circumstance or event that one person is able to emerge from unharmed may be disastrous for someone else, causing loss, injury, or death. Some might believe that faith prevented the situation from being worse than it was. Logically, they call on faith, too, to help them through the aftermath of a disastrous event. Surviving a natural disaster is often only the prelude to difficult consequences, such as the loss of a house or the deaths of friends and relatives—a sudden and complete change in everything that had been comfortable and “normal” up to the moment the disaster struck. At that juncture, faith is sorely needed.
When people talk about faith in these situations, they’re obviously making reference to religion and an all-powerful deity. It is natural and understandable for those of us who believe in a god, whether we call that god Jehovah or Allah or Wakan Tanka, to ask for help in moments of stress, uncertainty, and imminent danger. If we survive the storm, as we saw above, we ascribe the outcome to the merciful intervention of that deity. Sometimes, however, we question why that deity would allow such a thing to happen. Therefore, out of the same circumstance we have an assertion or confirmation of faith and a feeling of doubt, and perhaps the latter shakes our faith a bit.
There are many unrelenting realities throughout this journey we call life, realities that are reaffirmed the longer we live. One of them is the unpredictability of life and another is the fact that there is bad as well as good. Though it seems to be an inherent human desire for all things to go well, or as we think they should, that does not happen every time. When situations do not go well or as we think they should—or we are faced with a sudden and unexpected catastrophic event or possibility—we may doubt the fairness of life. Often, in those instances, doubt may seem more powerful than faith.
A popular movie titled Signs explores the loss of faith. A priest (presumably an Episcopalian or Lutheran) loses faith in God as a consequence of his wife’s death, after she is struck by a car while jogging. The priest experiences more than mere doubt, however. He renounces his faith and is angry with his god for allowing his wife’s death. A priest, of all people, should know and understand that life is not always fair—but even he falls to the power of doubt.
Having faith is the foundation of hope. When we realize that a situation is far beyond our ability to change or rectify it, many of us give in to it. Some of us, however, even in the worst of times, hope for some kind of relief or resolution that will bring light into the darkness or end the uncertainty or pain. That grain of hope, I believe, arises from our basic instinct for survival. Faith drives that instinct and enables us—at least most of us—to cling to it no matter what because there is a fundamental human belief in goodness, the eternal hope that good will overcome evil, that right will prevail over wrong.
My grandparents taught me to believe that there is good in life, that good things do happen. By and large this is what every society or set of beliefs teaches us. It is certainly not a lie, but there’s another side to this reality: bad things happen as well, ranging from disappointment (such as not getting a raise or a date with the object of your dreams) to setbacks (such as losing a job) to tragedy (such as a serious illness). We are taught that good is preferable, that we should strive to do good, to do the right thing, and to enable good. Therefore, given who my grandparents were and considering that their basic values were rooted in the Lakota culture, I choose to have faith in the strength of that culture and the best ideals it stood for and still does.
My grandparents also taught me that faith is believing in something without question—for example, compassion, truth, morality, generosity. It is knowing that those values—those human characteristics, if you will—do exist in the world. Furthermore, faith is believing that those values will be exercised more often than not.
Faith is also putting one’s own sense of compassion, truth, morality, or generosity into the mix when it is necessary. When we do, we are adding it to the sum total of those characteristics in the world, something like a snowball rolling down a hill, getting larger and more powerful as it goes. We do this any time we are compassionate, or truthful, or selfless. And if we believe that God created us and gave us—or enabled us to arrive at through our life’s path, lessons, and choices—the values that we have, then having faith in our own strengths is having faith in God.
My kind of faith was not given to me because I was born a Lakota or because I was baptized an Episcopalian. It was taught to me a little at a time as I learned about the realities of my world, realities that I could perceive and were affirmed by the adults in my immediate family, primarily my grandparents. The environment that I enjoyed as a child—the prairie, river valley, rolling hills, gullies, and trees—was populated by other beings, such as birds, coyotes, foxes, prairie dogs, deer, antelope, raccoons, and squirrels, and everything and everyone functioned and behaved according to what they were. Trees, for example, could grow anywhere but were found predominantly near water, meaning along creeks and rivers and near springs. Certain kinds of thick-bladed grasses, or rushes, always grew only along creeks, rivers, and around springs. Redwing blackbirds were always found near water, but meadowlarks and grouse built their nests on the open prairies. Rattlesnakes and burrowing (or screech) owls lived with prairie dogs in underground burrows. When horses grew thicker-than-usual hair in the autumn, it was a sure sign that a harsh winter was coming. They were never wrong. The same could be said of caterpillars.
Although there were variables, these realities always occurred basically in the same way and generally at the same time of the yearly cycle when conditions were right (regardless of man’s calendar). They could be counted on. One had faith in those realities, faith that they would always be part of the overall reality of life on the plains. There was a greater lesson, as well. One learned that faith in something was an operative and necessary part of being alive and having a life.
But to enable faith to work for us, we must know what we believe in. It has to be a part of each of us individually. Over my 67 years I have learned that the values my parents and all my grandparents tried to teach me are, in many ways, the foundation of faith. They taught me that with those values I am capable of facing, understanding, and enduring the negative aspects of life.
At the core of it, I believe faith is our very human instinct for things to be good and right, to turn out well. Faith is the one force that pushes or guides us toward the positive, to enable us to believe that good will win more times than bad. And if that belief inspires us individually to do what is right and good and moral and ethical at the moment it needs to be done, then faith is definitely a factor. For me, though, faith is more than hoping and believing that good will always win out, or that circumstances will always turn out the way I want them to. Faith is knowing that within me is the strength and ability to deal with the tough times, because I have been taught to do that, and I have done that. And as Iktomi shows us beyond a doubt, faith is just as necessary as feathers if we want to fly.