Driving home from Middletown on Sunday afternoons, I usually take Route 35, the old north-south road before the Parkway was constructed in the late forties. As I look out onto the marsh grass, and the older homes along the road, I can’t help but wonder what this area looked like before the settlers arrived in the seventeenth century.
The shore extended out at least 2,000 feet further into the ocean – that’s almost half a mile. Seafood including clams, mussels, and oysters were plentiful. You only had to walk out onto the beach and you’d get a wonderful array of food. Inland, the soil was fertile and good for all kinds of farming.
The native Lenape lived here. They were hunters and fishers and farmers. They cared for the land they inhabited. There was no oil scum on the water or litter along the old paths they took. How is it so many of us have lost our care and respect for the land where we live?
Prayer for the Day
Looking for signs of the spring to come, O God,
We marvel in the early bulbs beginning to emerge from the earth;
Startled at the appearance of robins even as it is still so cold,
We seize upon their presence as a sign of an early spring.
But we know, O Lord, that there is more winter to come,
May it not rest in our hearts but teach us patience.
In the name of the One who awakens new life in us,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
Being Indian is an attitude, a state of mind, a way of being in harmony with all things and all beings. It is allowing the heart to be the distributer of energy on this planet, to allow feelings and sensitivities to determine where energy goes, bringing aliveness from the Earth and from the Sky, putting it in and giving It out from the heart.
- Brooke Medicine Eagle, author, songwriter, and teacher
The land is sacred. It is at the core of your being. The land is our Moher, the rivers our blood.
- Mary Brave Bird, Lakota leader
Then deep from the earth you shall speak, from low in the dust your words shall come;
Your voice shall come from the ground like the voice of a ghost,
And your speech shal whisper out of the dust.
Isaiah 29: 4