Greetings!
Our team is on the road today, returning from Standing Rock. We are leaving with deep gratitude for the Standing Rock Sioux. Their nonviolent movement to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline and protect the Missouri River is an inspiring example of spiritual strength and resilience in the face of great adversity – and a timely vision of hope for everyone involved in social and environmental justice.
While we were at Standing Rock, we documented the remarkable acts of nonviolence that we had the honor of participating in. In the coming week, we will be sharing some of these stories with you, to offer real hope and to spread the message of Standing Rock.
Please share these visions of hope with others, because the media isn't telling these stories, and they need to be heard.
Today, we share a story from a week ago, when over a thousand Standing Rock "Water Protectors" and their allies walked to the Morton County Sheriff's Department in downtown Mandan, North Dakota, offering prayers of forgiveness for the police. What made this action extraordinary was that these prayers of forgiveness were being offered by people who had directly been shot with rubber bullets, maced, pepper-sprayed, arrested, and strip-searched by those same police officers. In a stark echo of the great Civil Rights marches of the 1960's, they endured shouts of "Go home!" and worse insults from nearby houses as they walked with dignity and quiet purpose through downtown Mandan.
In the words of Lyla Johnston, one of the organizers, we were there to "Fight fear with love".
Click here now to see our video of the Forgiveness Walk.
