Salmon and Swans

Here’s another piece from The Progressive Magazine from an article by Terry Williams “The Presence of a Swan.” He begins by talking about a Tlingit Native American custom of when the first Salmon would arrive (I assume for spawning) it was greeted as an elder and caused a celebration. There were ceremonies and songs and the Salmon was their guest and was respected. The Salmon also got eaten and then its bones were returned to the sea where they would be reassembled to return again and again. The Tlingit saw the salmon as a gift among many gifts for which they are thankful.

When my Tlingit friend Sasha was showing us around Juneau when we visited there, he showed us refrigerated trailer stacked upon refrigerated trailer full of frozen salmon ready for shipping to all places for folk to eat. Or, in other words, the salmon for many has become just another commodity from which folk can make a bunch of money.

Sasha also told me stories of how folk of my culture and religion did evil things to him and his culture when he set out to begin his practice of ministry in Alaska. I have not been able to get those images of bigotry and small mindedness out of my mind since and it makes me ashamed of part of my culture and my denomination. Sasha and I were in seminary together and were good friends, even writing a book on contemporary worship together as a project (none had be written yet.). How different our lives turned out in that I was allowed practice my calling and he was not. He is a good man with great children and has done well with his life and given much to his people and community. But I feel the thorn still festers for both of us.

The article I read was about connections. And the salmon celebration was illustrative of how a culture and a people can see and celebrate those connections. The author then tells a story of a birthday celebration he had in Paris where he and a friend walked by a large reflective pond where a solitary swan swam in the distance. The author, inspired by his surroundings, bends down to the water to put his hand in the water and his sunglasses fell off. His friend immediately knelt to retrieve the glasses when they both looked up and saw the swan a few inches away looking them right in the eye. The serene swan just paddled there in place staring at them tilting his head from side to side for different perspectives. They even had a bit of human to swan conversation before the swan eventually swam away. It was a gift, it was a connection.

How could it would be if we could spend more time seeing our connections and celebrating them and giving thanks for them rather than just seeing commodities for which we must compete and keep only for ourselves and ours.