At the invitation of the Eastern North Dakota synod, Deacon Colleen Bernu of the Northeastern MN Synod, and myself, Rev. Beth Pottratz of the EcoFaith Network, were the presenters for the Fall Theological Conference for their rostered and lay leaders.

The presentation was entitled "Living Interconnected: Theology of the Cross in this time of disconnect"

Through an Indigenous worldview, we invited people to look at their relationship with one another and with creation as being interconnected. We began with scripture, reading from Genesis 1-2:4a, Romans 8:9-24, and Psalm 104, and looking at these scriptures through the lens of how God, humans, and the natural world are connected together. We challenged ourselves to explore the impacts of social isolation, touch depravity, and synchrony on humanity, the world, and what the church's role is related to these things.

This video "Understanding Interconnectedness: Mindfulness for Humans" helped shape and guide our discussion of how deeply we are all interconnected.

We took a deeper dive into the barriers to interconnection like culture and communication, bias and injustice, and a culture of division, the places of brokenness and sin that tear us apart. In order to dig deeper into understanding our interconnection through an Indigenous worldview, we had a conversation about what is culture. By understanding the culture better, we are better able to translate an Indigenous worldview into our own non-Indigenous understandings of life. We defined culture as: "Shared values, beliefs, and attitudes within a group; dynamic, fluid, and evolving; and complex and multidimensional." By understanding the Indigenous culture, we transform our conversation from simply listening to a good indigenous story, to being able to be transformed by the Holy Spirit through our encounter with another of God's beloved and how they understand the world.

We dug into scripture again by looking at culture as defined by scripture. In Matthew 5 we discussed how leaving your house, family and fields are leaving behind cultural identity markers to follow Jesus. Mark 3 and Matthew 12 have Jesus defining family, which is a strong cultural group, as those who do God's will. John 15 speaks of the vine and the branches, which is a community and communities have culture. Romans 11 speaks on how we are grafted from one culture or community into another, but grafting does not change the uniqueness of the one grafted in. And for adoption of new family members in Ephesians 1 and Romans 8 that create new families, which is a new culture grounded in Christ and doing the will of God.

To help define cultural worldview, we took a look through linguistics and what language tells us through this TED Talk called "How Language Shapes the Way We Think" by Lera Boroditsky.

To understand Dn. Colleen's Indigenous worldview better, we dove into the Ojibwe language and grammar structure. Noting that this work is not just a fun exercise in language, but this understanding of worldviews and translating between worldviews has scriptural implications as well. The original languages of the Bible have their own structure, culture and worldview that is different from our American English. Understanding the culture and language behind the translation to English helps us better interpret God's word into our world today.

The Ojibwe language is an action based language, versus English which is noun based, which reflects in the Ojibwe teachings about taking responsibility and action to protect creation. The Ojibwe have two noun categories: animate and inanimate.

Reading scripture is an exercise in living interconnected across worldviews. Language and worldview, bridging the cross cultural divide, are key and critical to the initial precipitous that brought us together: understanding our interconnectedness with creation through an Indigenous worldview. In an Indigenous worldview, we are in relationship with all the animate objects: the humans, the animals, the trees, water, grass, gardens, weeds, and rocks. When one of these is suffering, we are all suffering, because we are all in relationship with one another.

So we followed up with a discussion on our role as humans in this world, guided by a TED Talk called "3000-year-old solutions to modern problems" by Lyla June, which challenged our understanding of our role and understanding of what God means when God grants humans "dominion over the earth". We further challenged ourselves with a reflection on the Hebrew root word for "dominion" with this article by Chaim Bentorah, "Hebrew Word Study - Dominion".

When we look at one another and the natural world as "Gidinawendimin" an Ojibwe word meaning "We are all related", we understand our relationship with creation as it is suffering differently. That creation does not suffer apart from us, but that the suffering of creation is our own suffering. Because we are in relationship with the natural world, when the natural world suffers, we live the effects too. Like we sit at the cross looking to the hope of the Easter resurrection, when creation suffers, we sit at the cross with creation groaning in pain, looking to the hope of new life, taking action as disciples to repair harm done to our relatives in the natural world, to bring healing to the world.