Daily Reading for April 16 • Mary (Molly) Brant (Konwatsijayenni), Witness to the Faith among the Mohawks, 1796
The traditional Mohawk greeting of She:kon, skennenkowa ken literally translates into English as “Do you still have the Great Peace?” Most Mohawk speakers shorten the phrase, using “She:kon,” pronounced “say-go,” as slang for “hello.” The Great Peace is the foundation of the Iroquois Confederacy, and the greeting is more than a casual hello. It is an earnest enquiry into the person’s wellbeing.
To help non-Mohawks understand this, in Judeo-Christian terms, the person who is being greeted is being asked if they are experiencing “shalom,” a sense of peace that pervades one’s whole body, mind and spirit. It implies wholeness and wellbeing, with oneself, others and Creation. It is the hope of our worshipping community that all may find peace, or skennen, through our relationship with God the Creator and Jesus Christ the Son of God, being faithful both to our Christian faith and our Mohawk identity, language and tradition.
From the website of the Anglican Parish of Tyendinaga, of the Anglican Church of Canada, a parish which “uses a mixture of traditional and contemporary worship and music (including Mohawk language and customs when possible), abiding by the principle that we are here to worship God and to give God thanks for the many blessings we experience in our lives.” Found at http://www.parishoftyendinaga.org/.
Creator we give you thanks for all you are and all you bring to us, for our visit within your Creation. In Jesus, you place the Gospel in the centre of this Sacred Circle through which all of creation is related. Give us the strength to live together with respect and commitment as we grow in your Spirit, for you are God, now and forever. Amen.
From the Indigenous Prayer Calendar, 2002-2003, of the Anglican Church of Canada, quoted in Give Us Grace: An Anthology of Anglican Prayers, compiled by Christopher L. Webber. Copyright © 2004. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com