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Work Day 1, part two:

As we left St. Mary’s, Walter asked if we would like to see their traditional Hogan which was nestled into the hillside above the church. We had hoped for this opportunity and made our way inside, navigating so much sand and the door that kept whipping open and shut with the wind. We settled ourselves into the circle and into a breathtaking conversation with Kathy and Walter. Kathy and Walter had lived in a Hogan with their 11 siblings at some points of their childhood. With one single chimney in the center these dome-like structures are built with local woods and covered in mud. Most Diné families no longer live in these traditional structures but have access to them in order to effectively “re-boot” themselves and redevelop balance in their spiritual lives or within their communities or families.

This time in the Hogan revealed much about the Diné people.  Kathy explained to us that everything in the Diné tradition has a gender, either female, male, or mixed. A female Hogan nourishes and refuels the people. A male Hogan prepares the people for battle or helps empower the people in one way or another. Walter told us that even rainstorms have genders, the steady nourishing rain without thunder is female and the bombastic thunderstorm with lightning and thunder is male. The roles of women as caretakers and men as food providers was and is key for their people, but so is a more fluid understanding of a middle ground where one might not exist uniformly in one category or the other.

They explained why the basket is such a key symbol for their people and how everything in life is circular. As you weave around the basket each time things may have changed, broadened, perhaps grown, but you always come back to the same center. You always come home, as Walter explained he himself did. In many ways this corresponds to our own faith tradition as well; without the basket imagery, we have this sense of a cycle of faith and in the best of cases we are broadening and deepening our faith journey and ideally our relationships with one another and with God. In both traditions if we stay stagnant, we fail to grow and the basket is incomplete.

Kathy explained the importance of the number four in the Diné tradition, in contrast to our tradition’s focus on the number three. There are four seasons of the year, four stages of the day represented by the Navajo four colors; white for dawn, blue for the day, yellow/orange for the evening, and black for the night. There are four directions, North, South, East and West. There are four stages of life: early childhood, adolescence, middle age, and elderly. The Diné pray four times a day, and often the prayers are repeated four times, or in a four-pattern rhyme, and within the four sacred mountains that loosely make up the four corners region where we were.

At some point in the conversation Kathy revealed the Diné perspective on apologies. There really is no word for sorry in Diné. If you knock someone and you are holding hot coffee, you might react in a way that connotes shock or disappointment, but not really regret; more like “oh shoot!”  Regret seems to be a useless emotion in their tradition. Instead they choose change. If you do something that hurts another person you need to change. You need to take accountability, understand your mistakes and change. This cannot be done in the expression “I am sorry”. This was truly mind blowing for many of us. In effect, Jesus also showed us this: words cannot do the hard work of expressing love as actions can. Jesus took on our grief, regret, and shame and told us through his actions and sacrifice that he loves us no matter our flaws. It is not about saying we are sorry, or even confessing - though those things are important, too - it is about striving to do better. It is about growing and changing as a result of hurting others. Words alone cannot do that work.

We spoke for over an hour in the Hogan and Walter realized that we had missed our lunch hour. We remembered that we had packed our lunches and that they were in the van. We offered to share what we had packed and so we broke bread in that sacred place, a stone’s throw from our Episcopal sacred space, after learning about their ancient traditions, while knowing the importance of sharing a meal in their culture as in ours. Hospitality was offered in both directions and I believe a state of humble acceptance in both parties was growing into love.