OK OK - Honorarium: Lawrence Hart, He’amavehonevėstse (Sky Chief), Cheyenne, Mennonite, 6 March 2022

[imstilla.grandma]

Lawrence Homer Hart, He’amavehonevėstse (Sky Chief), principal peace chief of the Cheyenne and a Mennonite pastor who worked to bring reconciliation to both peoples, died March 6. He was 89.

Hart cultivated the traditions of servanthood in the peace chief tradition, reinterpreting Bible stories for Mennonites and Cheyenne to help his diverse flocks understand the tribal Jesus he knew.

At the funeral on March 10 in Clinton, Okla., Raylene Hinz-Penner, who wrote a biography of Hart, Searching for Sacred Ground: The Journey of Chief Lawrence Hart, Mennonite (Cascadia, 2007), spoke of Hart’s connecting of Native American and Anabaptist spirituality.

“His life was a blending of the peacemaking he had learned from his grandfather visiting the Ute Mountain Utes, the vows he took to become a Cheyenne Peace Chief, the Cheyenne ways of justice, which incorporated forms of restorative justice, Anabaptist martyr peace stories he had studied and careful theological interpretation of Jesus as a tribal leader from his point of view as a Cheyenne,” Hinz-Penner said.

“When a Mennonite college friend [Larry Kaufman] died during his Pax service in Congo [in 1956], Hart vowed that he too would give his life to peacemaking. He preached the Jesus way and modeled calm and devoted presence in service to his people, both Cheyenne and Mennonite.”

Hart served as a reviewer for the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act and worked to repatriate the remains of thousands of Native Americans held in museums. To bury them with dignity, he worked with Mennonite Central Committee and denominations across the United States in a project designated “Return to the Earth” and established a site at the Cheyenne Cultural Center the Harts founded outside Clinton, where the unidentified remains of up to 25,000 Native Americans could be returned to the earth.
Hart connected Native American and Mennonite peace traditions | Anabaptist World

 

[imstilla.grandma]

Haahe-nah’e Ma’heo’o

Grandfather Sacred Above-Grandmother Sacred Below.
Creator, God. ALL SPIRIT. Ma’heo’o. YOU, who are known by many names,

Thank you for this sacred evening, for this gathering, for this food and water, and for this celebration of individual and collective achievement.

Ma’heo’o, Hahoo na-heve. Ne-a’ese.
Ma’heo’o. As the humble, upright two-legged walkers with five fingers—

Thank you for the divine, the holy that is within each of us, your four-human children, from each of the four sacred directions of this good Earth.

Thank you for the sacred breath of life.

Thank you for the power of good-heartedness and spirit-centeredness.

Thank you for GOOD minds and speech.

Thank you for your great gift of sight and vision so that we can see the beauty of life AND the beloved in each other.

Ma’heo’o with humility, I ask you to encircle each of us with all that is good, especially with respect, compassion, understanding, and joy.

Shield all who stand here before you with the power that is love and the strength of gentleness in their sacred commitment to educating the beloved and precious
children of this sacred red earth.

Fulfill their vision of recreating a strong and compassionate human community that understands the kinship of life.

Bless all my relations who have come to this ceremony so that in all their days on earth they will walk in beauty and with honor.

Ma’heo’o, here in your beautiful city on the eastern shore of this great land,

Bless all my relations with grace and the ability to forgive.
Comfort and wipe the tears of all those who are in sorrow.
Fill their hearts and minds with serenity and hope.

Guide our hearts with compassionate and wise spiritual direction—
So that we can think love and be love.
So that we can think peace and be peace.

Ma’heo’o.
NAA he-na-haa-neh’e. Neh’e-dao-veh’e-na-neh’e- sooh-neo’o. Nehse.
Haahe-nah'e Ma'heo'o: A prayer in Cheyenne