“Today, on Native American Day, I invite you to pause with me. We pause to pay attention to our indigenous neighbors, to acknowledge their pain and heed God’s call to seek steps to repair the breach for the sake of healing the entire body of Christ. Indigenous people have been exiled from their own lands by the dominant culture centuries ago and continue to live estranged from their own land up to this day. Their fore-bearers were forced into life changes that over and over again broke bodies, spirits, and minds. Their many nations experienced incredible oppression. While you and I have not personally participated in the violence of our ancestors against our indigenous siblings, we most certainly inherit the historic trauma of a divided and alienated people, and therefore it is our responsibility to lean into our collective sin.” – Bishop Constanze Hagmaier