Tracy Howe
A month ago, the US government announced they would enable Oak Flat to be transferred to Resolution Copper, a foreign owned mining company. The required environmental impact study would be released. Resolution Copper quickly notified the San Carlos Apache tribe they intended to start preliminary work within weeks. This was just one event in what has been a two-decade struggle to save Oak Flat from complete and utter destruction.
Oak Flat is a place where Western Apaches and other Native peoples have gathered since time immemorial for sacred religious ceremonies that cannot take place anywhere else. Known in Apache as Chi’chil Biłdagoteel, Oak Flat is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and has been protected from mining and other harmful practices for seventy years.
A hearing for an injunction to stop Resolution Copper from moving forward while a case in the Supreme Court was still pending was filed in a federal court and a hearing was set within a week. When prospectors turned their attention to Oak Flat, political advocacy was effective in protecting the Sacred Land. Only after the land was transferred through a midnight rider slid into a “must-pass” defense bill in 2014 did Apache Stronghold start fighting on the grounds of religious freedom.
As a faith leader fighting to protect Oak Flat in solidarity with Apache Stronghold, as well as a person who depends on clean air and water in southern Arizona, I and others were asked what Bible verses we would use in defense of Oak Flat. A group of us quickly wrote down hundreds of passages that instruct and admonish people of faith to care for creation and protect life and that which sustains life, but for me I kept falling back on 1 Corinthians 12:12–27. Resolution Copper was arguing that the complete and utter destruction of Oak Flat would not harm Apache religion or prevent them from practicing their religion. Their argument was based on capitalist frameworks where place and land is a commodity. If this church building disappears, get another one.
But to assert that the destruction of Oak Flat is of no spiritual or religious consequence is to divorce Spirit from what lives and from what fills life and religion with power. While dictionary definitions of “spirit” and “spiritual” will center immaterial concepts of soul, spirituality and religion are the relationships we live and practice. The spirituality and religion we practice are the connections and relationships we make and sustain from one living thing to another. To make that connection living is the spirituality. Without connection, without relationality of specific living beings, the relationality of Apache People to Oak Flat and other specific sacred lands, there is no spirituality and no religion. To destroy Oak Flat, the sacred land where Usen (God) lives, would be to Muslims as if Mecca itself were destroyed, a specific holy site to which all Muslims are called to physically pilgrimage once over the course of their life. It would be for Hindus to destroy the Ganges river, which is a divine entity who cleanses and purifies. It would be to Christians as if the sacraments themselves were destroyed, gifts given freely from God, through which we know and experience God’s grace and love, baptism and holy communion, taken forever.
This is why I landed on this famous text in 1 Corinthians. The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you, so I will cut you off and sell you. The feet cannot decide that the head is worth money and so cut it off and sell it. If we do this, the whole body dies.
We who have been socialized to believe place is a commodity suffer spiritual malformation. We have divorced Spirit from what lives. All land is sacred and non-disposable because it is part of an ecosystem that we are interconnected with.
While I started writing this piece, the world ending news broke that the Supreme Court will not intervene to protect Oak Flat from complete and utter destruction. There are no words. The United Church of Christ submitted an Amicus Brief in support of Apache Stronghold and the Supreme Court case. Thousands have prayed and we will continue. I lament this Witness For Justice piece must end in such a way. I leave the words of a song I wrote for this movement as a continuing prayer.
One Drum, One Prayer, One Circle to survive
To protect our mother earth and stop the shattering of life
May the land be yours to say
Here my people dream
May the land keep your children safe
And hold your ceremonies
And when evil gathers ‘round
May those against you fall
And every good person hear your call to…
One Drum, One Prayer, One Circle to survive
To protect our mother earth and stop the shattering of life
May the land be yours to say
Here my people live
May the land hold your medicine
with every other gift
And when evil gathers ‘round
May those against you fall
And every good person hear your call to…
One Drum, One Prayer, One Circle to survive
To protect our mother earth and stop the shattering of life
