The faith of the original disciples, especially Peter and Paul carried the story of Jesus Christ forward for 60 years after His resurrection. The writing down of the words of Jesus in to the Gospels occurred in the last half of the first Century.

This clearly tells us that the events witnessed by the disciples were so life changing that they were compelled to be the seed planters of Christianity until their deaths. It is a powerful experience if we can put our selves in that place where we can imagine for a moment witnessing events that are so important that we would spend the rest of our lives
telling as many people as possible of their importance in the face of incredible hardships including persecution and horrible deaths.

The teachings of the disciples were assembled into the Gospels we recognize today, essentially after their deaths. The story of Jesus Christ, the beginnings of Christian faith were preserved in the second half of the First Century. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were likely written between 60 AD and the early part of the 2nd Century.

In the Bible, the path to salvation runs through Jesus Christ. When we believe that the Bible is God breathed, that what is in the Bible is there because it is the truth, it decrees that we must set aside controversial challenges such as the Nostic Gospels, written many years after the original Gospels had come into existence.

With a Bible to create an organizational focal point, the church as we know it began to emerge and with it the establishment of a power base that attracted those seeking spiritual enlightenment.

When the Romans began severe persecution of the Christian faith, centered around life after death, they created an army of martyrs to further the spread of the Jesus message.
And when the plague in the 13th century wiped out 75 percent of the worlds population there were still strong forces trying to wipe out the Christians, essentially because they were people who were upsetting the apple cart so to speak.

What history tells us is that violence has been associated with God from the beginning.
The love of Jesus is what changes the equation. Even when we are spiritually reborn in that faith it is not a guarantee that we will live a perfect life on earth.
As saved souls we still continue sinning. Thank God for his love and patience as he says how we too often continue to live. Our salvation really is only in heaven. Only then do we reach the platitudes that Jesus asked us to reach out for.

This is really the only explanation that makes any sense of the history of violence that we see throughout history in the name of Christianity and in the attempts to wipe it out.
Religious ‘experts’ always get caught up in trying to find answers with human-based critical thinking. The search for historical affirmation of the Bible story always produces rich confirmation. But in trying to carry through a variety of scenarios about what the Christian faith is all about they invariably lose sight of the single most import fact. The story of Jesus Christ is not about a human. It is about God coming to earth in human form through a virgin mother and returning to earth in human form through resurrection after death. If this is ‘not’ true then the whole story of Jesus is nothing more that a fascinating tale.

The Nicean Creed, written in the 13 th Century during the time of Constantine, legalized Christianity and formalized who Jesus Christ is…the Son of God. And when the Roman Empire collapsed the Christian faith emanating for the same geographical focal point spread through out the world.

Today, we see escalating violence that at its core is more and more emerging as a global battle for religious superiority as seen through the eyes of Islamic faith and interpretations of the words of the Prophet Mohammed.

The battle for truth is one that will go on until an unchallengeable event occurs to establish what is truth. But until that happens the most important search for every person needs to be a recognition that we need to know what is true.

It is said by many in these life and times that each of us is entitled to believe what we think is right or wrong. This thinking is strongly rooted in the denial of a God or Creator and leans more toward the concept of evolution, that we humans have no substantial difference from animals other than being more intelligent. And then of course it sensibly follows that there is no guiding set of moral values.

That thinking is seen by many as the more destructive force.

Truthiness. Word of the year for 2006 says Associated Press. Although I SHOULD KNOW BETTER, I was surprised to hear that ''words'' were up for consideration in an Oscar like environment. Guess I missed the original announcement for all the words that were nominated.
I don’t want to discuss the fellow who apparently invented the word and what he says it means. When I heard the word for the first time, it started me thinking about how it reflects on how our world runs in the 21st Century. Less and less on one truth…more and more on truthiness. What is put forth as truth. The entitlement of everyone to have their own truth.

This topic easily could turn into a deep philosophical discussion by using a comprehension defieing tangle of words that everyone except the word smiths who relish the opportunity to express themselves with massive explanations that leave mere mortals with blank expressions thick with a glaze of HUH?

A PHD to be, person I know often pulls out the phrase that goes something like this, ‘the essence of higher education is being enlightened to think critically about everything’.
This concept is very idealistic in the sense that to me it creates the ground rules for everything to be questioned with potential total disregard for the facts. That does not mean that I don’t accept that critical thinking is not an important part of the education process. Thinking that is grounded in finding solutions to problems, determines the facts, sorts out the problem areas and then figures out how those problems can be fixed: Man is very good at this as evidenced by all the technology imbedded in everyday life.

Call me a conspiracy theorist but to me critical thinking seems to be aimed at creating intellectual and spiritual anarchy. In the spiritual vein, preferably people would not acknowledge any god but if they choose to, which ever one they picked is okay because everyone is entitled to believe what they want. Once people are convinced to do that then all the moral codes of conduct rooted in Biblical ‘truth’ can be thrown out.

What I see us left with is truthiness. It eliminates a single truth for anything. If it sounds like the truth to you no one has the right to disagree and they probably won’t. They’ll just be happy with what they think is right.

There must be truth. If there wasn’t, gravity wouldn’t be reliable, 2 plus 2 wouldn’t always be 4 and not everyone would die. So far all the health research in history has not kept one person from dieing. All the honest accountants always get the answer 4 and you will always get to the bottom of the hill on skis, even if you do have a garage sale on the way.

Find truth and accept it whether or not you like the answer. That is where our evolution as human being lies not in popularizing the idea that we’re merely smart animals and a little spirituality of some kind is just a genetic quirk.

Drowning Eagles

There is no road to the Tsmpsian Reserve. Boats or float planes like the Beavers and Otters are the only reasonable ways to get there. Somebody rich like B.C. Hydro men or loggers coming to look at our trees come by helicopter. Once, a fella from Ontario with a shiny suit and sharp pointed shoes came by helicopter looking to buy some of the gold jewellery I carve. I didn’t like the way his slippery,city voice told me how famous I was.
I am a traditional Indian. My son Samual has been raised to know the old ways. I’ve taught him the Tsmpsian language. It was easier to do with just the two of us which is the way it was most of the time in our house. Since he was a baby, I’ve told him all the stories passed to me by my parents and grandparents and other elders in the village. Samual most liked hearing stories that had any part about an eagle and sometimes I would add a part about an eagle just to make him smile. I’ve taught him many old songs and chants. Now Samual is nearly 16 and he gets confused about the old ways and all the new things he sees in the modern world. Like some of the songs I taught him; he made them into songs with English words and made up the tune on an old guitar his friend Rickey Robertson gave him. Samual wails like a wolf in the autumn suffering with a big bellyful of rotten Sockeye.
Our house is in the old section of the village. We got some new shingles on the roof last year to fix the leaks. It needs paint. The front window that looks out on Burl Bay has a big crack that runs a crooked trail from from corner to corner. Samuals’ complaining made me fix the roof and now he wants the window fixed. I tell him that at least it looks out on the ocean instead of what the people in those houses up in the new section get to see. “If all I had to see was mountains with the trees torn off,” I tell him, “The window might as well be boarded up.”
“Why don’t we burn this old shack down and go for one up in the new section?” Samual asked, one night after visiting his friends up there.
Even though he laughed, his eyes told me he was only half kidding. Others had done it. When Samual talked that way it made me think of his mother. She had taken off from us when he was two years old. I blamed my cousin, Moses Usher, for turning her away from the traditional ways. He always talked lots about the big city. Then he took her there. He came back to the village ten years later wearing a big cowboy hat with a fake eagle feather in it, boots made from “real” alligator skin according to him and he walked like he had a prawn trap between his legs. All he talked about was being a cowboy in Montana and all he said about Connie was that they split up five years ago and he didn’t know “where the fuck she went.”
Whenever I saw Moses walking around the village I got this worry that Samual would also get taken away from me someday. And I get this nightmare about two strangers coming to the door. They tell me to let Samual come with them. No reason. Just smiling faces. And I wake up in cold sweat feeling sticky like a salmon that has just died.

*****


Samual is a real hero in the village. He scored the winning points for our team when they won the All-native Tournament in Prince Rupert this spring. He played on the men’s team all winter even though he is only 15 years old. Basketball is very important in all the villages in this part of the land. It is like a test of manhood...a way to still do battle. I have accepted that Samual has more gifts from the Spirits for basketball than for carving. I see his warrior eyes and his eagle ways when he moves on the hardwood floor. When the team won the trophy Samual also got one for Best Newcomer. The team carried him around the village on their shoulders when they had a victory parade. I sure was proud too but I couldn’t explain why something about it didn’t feel right inside my heart.

It was three weeks after the big parade. One of those Vancouver Island Helicopters swooped over the mountain and put down on the big cement pad by the village Band Council Office. I watched through my cracked front window as a tall, skinny white guy with legs that flopped in all directions when he walked and a short white guy with a bald head and sun glasses talked to Moses Usher who always appeared when strangers came to the village. Moses waved his arms a lot and strutted around like he was doing a real bad Chicken Dance.

“Is this where Samual Abraham lives?” The tall one looked over my head when I answered the knock at the door. The short one looked up at me from behind. He pushed his glasses back up the bony bridge of his nose with thin white fingers. I could see he breathed hard and sweated from the five minute walk.

When I let them inside, they started piling on the praise about Samual.
“Your boy has a big future...a BIG future in basketball,” said the tall one.
“Think about the good education Samual is going to get if he goes out to school,” the short one squeaked.
His voice resembled his mousy body which paced back and forth in front of the front window. They said the same few things over and over again like maybe I didn’t understand.
“This is a big, big opportunity for Samual.” They both talked at the same time and nodded with each other in agreement.
Samual was all smiles and nodding his head with them. When they left, Samual was ready to go too. I told them we had to think about it. What I was really thinking about was my dream.

It is the biggest thing to ever come between us. At my work desk I go through the motions of carving. I cannot feel the gold or the tools in my hands. When Samual is home he lies slumped in a corner on the old couch that has its stuffing sticking out in the places where the cats have sharpened their claws. The argument is the same every day.
“It doesn’t matter how hard I try, my feelings stay the same. Leaving home will be no good for you.” My voice is low and the words have no emotion left in them.
“No good for you.” Samuals’ voice sounds the same as mine. “That’s what you mean isn’t it?”

“You know all the stories about what happens to young people from the village when they get out in the big city.” My hands stop their work; the one that carves hangs over the one holding the golden shield. Time is frozen like the half finished circling eagle on the shield. “Is that what you want to happen to you?”

“How many times do I have to say it?” Samual’s voice slaps me like his hand slaps the worn out arm of the couch. ”I am not like the others.”
“Basketball is just a game.” I say. Those guys that came here were saying all those things just to get you to play a game. When they don’t want you anymore you’ll be back here. Sounding just like Moses Clayton....walking around with a big bunch of stories to tell whoever would listen. What’s the good of doing that?”
The couch groans a sound of relief. Samuals scuffs his way to his bedroom. Soon the guitar strings moan into their box. Samual plays loud and hard. BOMP PA PA BOMP PA PA BOMP BOMP BOMP BOMP... BOMP PA PA BOMP PA PA BOMP BOMP BOMP BOMP. Hi tongue grabs words from deep in his throat and throughs them like shooting flames....

Ohhh..oh powerful and mighty eagle
Give me your spirit
Let your strong and fierce ways
Run through my heart

The vibrations from Samuals singing and playing shake loose little pieces of dust from the window frames. I watch them drift their aimless paths to the floor.

Ohhh...oh powerful and mighty eagle
I need these gifts from you
So the lands and the waters
Will serve me like they serve you
BOMP PA PA BOMP PA PA BOMP BOMP BOMP.

I turn to see Samual standing with his legs wide apart. His straight black hair snaps backwards then forwards in the opposite direction of his snapping head. His eyes are shut tight. His face makes strange shapes that belong on a mask. His arms are stretched to each end of the guitar which is slung low across his body. The right hand pounds against the strings. Louder and harder.

When he is wet on his hair and face and where his blue denim shirt goes under his arms,finally there is silence. He walks near to my working place. He looks straight into my face. “What if we both moved to the city? That would be better wouldn’t it? There’d be money from the government I’d get for going to school. We could get a nice place. You could still carve.”

“This village. This is the place where I must carve Samual. You should know that by now.”
“What about me?” Samuals’ voice is different than I have ever heard it before. “What about my life?” He smashes the guitar across the couch. “You don’t care shit about my life! All you care about is yourself!”
The words crash into my ears like ocean storm waves on a slab of seashore. When the front door slams behind him the force shakes loose the cracked halves of the front window. The spears of glass fall like they’re being dropped one by one, splattering across the linoleum. My chest feels like a ceremonial drum with the beats coming from the inside. Heaviness closes my eyes. I must remember, I must remember...

*****
It is the early part of summer; the warm days that come near the end of May and early in June. Out on the government dock the young boys fish. They are jigging with their rods and buzz bomb lures for the Tommy cod lazing in the shadows of the big black posts under the dock. The fun is to watch the boys reel up their wriggling catches. When the tide is low the air dances of the fish are about 30 feet long. I see Samual lay down his fishing rod and pick up one of the dead fish. He hollers loud so everyone will watch. The fish spins through the rays of sun and splats on the water.
The eagles are around because they have nesting places not far from the village. They
glide and flap and circle and play their eagle games of chase over the bay in front of the village. When they’re tired of that they fight for the best perches on the big spruce across from the dock. Now, from the big tree a six foot wing span rides a silky curtain to the ripples on bay. Yellow talons grab the fish cleanly. Surging wings grab big chunks of sky. I have seen the eagles all my life and their spirit fills me with joy.

“Mr. Abraham! Mr. Abraham!”
One of the boys is trying to get me watching another fish thrown, I think.
“Mr. Abraham! Come quick!”
I try to see who it is. I rub my eyes. Through the sharp edges of the front window I see Billy Dundas running as hard as he can. I make it to the front door the same time as he does.
“Mr. Abraham, come down to the docks. It’s Ricky Robertson. He was fishin’ and...”
air scrapes into his chest. “And he fell off the end of the dock!”
Billy stumbles behind me down the path towards the dock. “And Samual jumped in to try and save Ricky cuz he was screamin’ he can’t swim. And now we can’t see nobody down there!”
At the dock all the kids are trying to tell me at the same time what has happened. “Samual brought Rickey up two times. I seen him!” It is Billys younger brother Art. “What did you do?” I scream in his scared face. What did any of you do? Stand around and watch?” I run along the edge of the dock looking over. A running shoe drifts out from the black shadows. It wallows in the ripples. White. Lifeless. Long after night comes, village men poke the inky sheen with gaff hooks and spotlights from boats tied to the slimy fingers of the dock.

*****

There was a time we looked after our own dead. Now, two men in a helicopter come and take Samual and Rickey away. They have to go to the hospital for a doctor to make sure they are dead. Then they go to a funeral place to make sure they are ready to bury. The new tradition we have now is the way we return to the village with our dead. A funeral procession of boats carry the coffins and families up the coast from Prince Rupert, into the bay and up to the dock.
The day is sunny. The glistening, white hull of the seine boat, Blistered Harvest plows through soft rolls of green water and the breeze is just enough to feel cool on my face as I stand beside the polished oak. The other boats follow our wake. They make such a straight line it gives only glimpses of waving masts, one behind the other. Then when we turn past the green buoy off Blistered Point just outside the village it is like we are a rope being pulled through the water. Only when the boats enter the inside harbour do they go different directions to find their tie-up places at the docks.
Rickeys’ parents, Joe and Wanda Robertson, look pretty sick when I see them inside the church. When I walk past where they are sitting I get the smell of liquor real strong. I know they are on the “go” lots. That’s the word for partyin’. They weren’t in the village when Rickey drowned.
In the hot, stuffy church Pastor Beams leads in the singing of Amazing Grace. Pastor Beams is a thin, white guy with a lump that goes up and down in his throat when he sings. His voice doesn’t fit his size. When we sit down at his direction he moves over to the pulpit. “This is such a tragic loss for all of us. Our young people should not be taken from us in the dawn of their day. And it is at these times we need Gods’ strength to find the difficult answers.”
There is a rattle of feet finding the floor. It is Joe Robertson standing up. His face is puffy and twisted by unnatural forces. His words come out thick and wet. “If the government didn’t build a dock with no God damned guard rails my boy wouldn’t have fell off it.” He lurches his distorted, liquor swollen face towards me. “And if there were some ropes or life rings down there, Samual wouldn’t be dead either!”
The force of his own words seems to push him backwards. Wanda has to hold him off of herself as falls back into his seat. They both wail and moan and hang on to each other.

After the funeral , I am alone at last with the night air that comes off the sea. The only sound is the soft roll of waves licking at the rocky shores of the bay. I look down from my place on the edge of the government dock. The water is shiny and black as a Ravens back.
“Samual.” I say. “Today I will tell you the story about the eagle that could swim.

Well , there was this eagle back in the times when eagles ruled our land. Rok. That was his name. Rok had a special gift. He never waited for the salmon to rise up to the top of the water. When Rok was hungry he dove into the sea....deep down to where the fish are. He would pick the fattest one, grab it with his mighty talons and with one big push of his wings would soar up through the water as if it was air. And when he came to surface he’d rise right up into the sky like he was fired from a white mans fire monster. Rok was a hero be cause he always caught extra for all the other families.
But Sa-la, his father, did not like this. He loved his son and was afraid he would lose him. Maybe to the sea...maybe to all the others that would depend on Rok for fresh fish. One day Sa-la could not keep his thoughts silent any longer. “Rok, you must stop swimming in the sea. It is dangerous and I don’t want to lose you. Just be like the other eagles.”
“It is my gift, father.” Replied Rok. “I must use it.”
Later that day, Rok went out to fish. He dove into the sea and grabbed a big, fat salmon. But when he tried to lift it, the gift was gone. Try as he might the fighting salmon which he could not release from his claws dragged him deeper into the blackening depths. His father’s words echoed in his mind and then with a blinding white flash he entered the spirit world.

“ Did you like that story, Samual. I hope it isn’t too sad for you.” Lincoln Abraham let his eyes rest on the golden eagle medallion in his hand. “We are all drowning eagles, Samual.”

Lincoln Abraham arched his arm and heaved the medallion onto the sea. As it touched the water he was blinded by a white explosion. An eagle erupted from the waters like a shooting star returning to the heavens. In an eye’s blink the light was gone. Lincoln Abraham stood for several minutes in stone silence
He did not to notice the vapours seeping around his clenched fist. In the darkness, he feltThat his hand again clutched the eagle medallion.