Image by Kari Shea from Pixabay

For the last year, every day I read an excerpt from “Embers: One Ojibway’s Meditations” by Richard Wagamese. Richard’s words are an endless source of inspiration for my life. I wish I had met him during his lifetime.

At the age of twenty, I would not have turned to an indigenous writer for wisdom for my life. My loving parents had raised me to think there was something inferior about Indigenous people, even though my limited experience at high school had shown me otherwise.

Today, I know the horror of that kind of thinking. I have grown in my understanding of God’s wonderful creation. Today I know that all people are God’s precious creation. And so I have been given the given of Richard Wagamese’s wisdom.

The following is one of those readings that has touched my heart. Not being able to talk with Richard, I can only assume he used the format of a conversation with “An old woman”, or “An Old Man”, to present his reflections because his culture reveres the knowledge of their elders. When you read his words, please follow his instructions. Bring his wisdom into your life. “Feel his words. Sit with them. Use them.”

“ME: What’s the hardest spiritual thing I’m ever going to have to do?

OLD WOMAN: To see every person as a gift.

ME: What kind of gift?

OLD WOMAN: The best kind. Based on the way you receive them.

ME: I don’t get it.

OLD WOMAN: I know but you will. If you receive others as worthy, lovable

Spiritual creations – perfect just the way they are – you get

To see the highest possible version of who you are. You get

To be that, to experience that. And you become a gift to the

World.

ME: Sounds hard.

OLD WOMAN: The longer you think that, the harder it gets.

***

Funny thing is, she was right.”

And as followers of Jesus we know that everyone is God’s precious gift to this world. If only we would all choose to believe that truth, world peace would become a reality.