The Moth Radio Hour: Stuck!

I'm from the Eastern Shawnee tribe of Oklahoma, but I've lived in Denver, Colorado, for quite a few years.

I have a friend that also lives in Denver who's originally from Oklahoma, the Cherokee Nation.

A few years ago, we got talking about how homesick we were, and he suggested that we could go spend a couple of weeks with his grandma, who said he didn't visit nearly enough anyway.

So we made our plans.

We got in the car for the twelve-hour drive, and on the way there, we talked about everything we missed: fry bread and powwows and stomp dances and hearing our people speak our own languages.

By the time we got to Oklahoma, I was so happy to be home.

We were maybe three or four miles from his grandma's house when he said there were a couple of things he maybe should tell me about.

[laughing]

The first was that his grandmother might not be particularly fond of Shawnee people.

[laughing]

This was because of a thing that had happened between our tribes in the late eighteen hundreds-

[laughing]

... which might seem like a long time ago to some people, but she remembered.

[laughing]

The second thing he said was that she could be a little bit persistent about inviting people to go to church with her on Sunday.

Right away, I knew what he meant.

In modern-day Oklahoma, Native people have an eclectic array of spiritual beliefs.

Some follow our traditional ways.

Others have joined various congregations.

I grew up with an Irish Catholic mother and a Shawnee father, and so I was very open to all kinds of different spiritual beliefs.

But as I'd grown up, it was our traditional ways that had spoken to my heart.

However, when I went back home, I'd still get a lot of invitations to go to church.

Although I really appreciate it, I usually politely declined because there was always an undercurrent of hoping that I might be converted, and I really don't like to disappoint people.

[laughing]

So I promised my friend that I could be diplomatic with his grandmother if she was persistent with her invitations, and I even thought that maybe I could win her over to like Shawnee people.