How can we find a way to live in the knowledge that we are all related? How can we become better kin?

~ Patty Krawec, Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future

“What if you don’t believe in ancestors?” the young man said after I greeted him. His tone sounded a tad bit confrontational – or at least I heard it that way. I was slightly surprised by the question and the tone, both of which seemed to indicate there was something more on his mind.

“Can you say more about what you mean?” I asked, having learned from experience that it is far better to gather additional information before answering, especially when a question surprises me.

“Well, I don’t believe I’ll be an ancestor, so what would you say to that?”

I paused for a moment, puzzled. “The only thing I could say to that,” I responded slowly and admittedly awkwardly, “is that if you could figure out a way not to die…, to live forever…, then I suppose you would not become an ancestor.”

He started to say more, but I saw others waiting to speak with me and suggested that perhaps he and I could talk more about this at another time, as I needed to speak with those who were waiting.

“Then I’ll wait until you’re done,” he said with a determination I could not miss. He stood across from me and waited, watching as I spoke with others for quite some time.

When the last person had departed, he returned. The set of his face seemed different, a bit softer perhaps.

“I think I might have not been clear about the question I asked,” he said, sounding a little less confrontational. I wondered if he had softened after watching the others who had been in good spirits.

“You see, I don’t have anyone else. It’s just me, and I don’t think I’ll ever have anyone else, so I don’t see how I could be an ancestor. I was wondering what you thought about that?”

My guard fell as my heart softened. I looked upon his young face, and felt a rise of compassion at his sense that he would have no one else, that his life once lived, would have no meaning to others he was connected to.

“Then you would be my ancestor,” I said softly. There was a moment’s pause. I wanted to hug him but did not.

“Oh,” he said. “I didn’t realize you were defining ancestor in such a broad way.”

“Yes,” I responded. “We might have ancestors who are related to us, or other ancestors we simply claim as our own. But in a way, we are all each other’s ancestors when we are no longer here.”

“Oh,” he said and his demeanor visibly changed. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. Thank you.” He walked away, seeming to ponder our conversation.

For many reasons, I too pondered our exchange, long after it was over. I could see how he might have thought as he did, if he truly felt that he’d have no relations that would follow him -- and there might have been many reasons unknown to me why he held this belief.

And, I realized how my own beliefs about ancestors had evolved over time. The sense that we might only have one line of ancestors now seems quite individualistic to me as I hold the sense that we are all a part of the interdependent web of all existence.

Or the African philosophy of “ubuntu”: I am because you are; you are because I am.  Or sometimes described as, I am because we are.

The Anishinaabe understanding of “niikinaaganaa”, is similarly described by Patty Krawec, an Anishinaabe and Ukranian writer from Lac Seul First Nation:

I am my relatives, all of them. I am related to everything. All my relations. And also more than that.

And, she says, “The world is alive with beings that are other than human, and we are all related, with responsibilities to each other.” The ubuntu philosophy holds this expansive recognition as well.

We are a part of the web that is massively abundant, expansive, filled with so many beings interconnected and interdependent with we who are human. And when all beings are no longer here in the physical among those of us who are among the living, then perhaps, I like to believe, they are in a realm of the ancestors, where they are also interdependent, interconnected, and so ancestors to us all.

And we are all related and never alone.

Palms together,
Rev. Jacqueline