One step from heaven

I'm reading Returning to the Teachings this week for my second restorative justice class. What strikes the author, and consequently the reader, is the tendency for aboriginal justice processes to avoid punishment (prison) unless absolutely necessary, which is to say, very rarely. Through the use of a variety of Circle-based systems, the community is involved in a more holistic approach with the ultimate goal of healing and reintegration of the offender into the community. This is wildly different from the criminal justice system, with its goals of punishment of the offender with precious little thought to their reintegration.

There is an immeasurably deep divide between the circular approach to life and the linear approach to life, and this is just one way it plays out.

You have noticed that everything an Indian does in a circle,
and that is because the Power of the World 
always works in circles,
and everything and everything tries to be round.

In the old days all our power came to us from the sacred hoop
of the nation and so long as the hoop was unbroken the people
flourished. The flowering tree was the living center of the hoop,
and the circle of the four quarters nourished it. 
The east gave peace and light, the south gave warmth, 
the west gave rain and the north with its cold and mighty wind 
gave strength and endurance. 
This knowledge came to us from the outer world 
with our religion.

Everything the power of the world does is done in a circle.
The sky is round and I have heard that 
the earth is round like a ball
and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls.
Birds make their nests in circles, 
for theirs is the same religion as ours.
The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon
does the same and both are round. Even the seasons form a great
circle in their changing and always 
come back again to where they were.

The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, 
and so it is in everything where power moves. 
Our teepees were round like the nests of birds, 
and these were always set in a circle, the nation's hoop,
a nest of many nests, 
where the Great Spirit meant for us to hatch our children.

Black Elk, Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux 1863-1950, quoted here.

This distinction has profound implications for how we understand Christianity (and, no less importantly, highlights the immeasurable damage done by marauding missionaries and settlers). As a religion from the Middle East, christianity is - in theory - just as 'foreign' to European peoples as it is to first nations and native american peoples, so what would Christianity look like through an indigenous lens, without all the extra crap that Europeans brought? How would that culture shape it? I acknowledge it feels somehow offensive to ask what aboriginal culture could do for Christianity, given history. I ask as someone looking for grace, in order to learn and heal.

My guess was that Indigenous spiritualities did not have a concept of hell because it has a similar function to prison: they just didn't need it, and perhaps because it just didn't fit. A cursory googling (with more research needed and with apologies for the generalization) suggests this is the case. Of course, aboriginal people are very familiar with the concept since christian Europeans arrived on the scene. It seems missionaries used words for 'fire' and 'underground' to convey hell (see also: residential schools, forced migration, etc. etc). The native people must have thought they were completely loony. Dangerously loony.  

The ideas of healing and reconciliation seem a much better fit with Jesus' model. I love this quote. If only Christians were known for attitudes like this:

"movement to harmony [is] based on the attitude of elders who 'do their best to convince people that they are one step away from heaven instead of one step away from hell'"

First Nations education in Canada: the circle unfolds

Battiste and Barman, quoting Rupert Ross