Celebration Grounds

Sometimes I wonder how people can be so insensitive to others and just want to take something because it is there.  

We live in an area of Tennessee where three of the seven Cherokee tribes lived over 200 years ago.  We can see there lifestyle in local museums and for the most part they got along well.  That is unless they crossed over into the other tribe's hunting grounds. 

Near our town and home is the place where they would gather and celebrate the Cherokee games (like our Olympics) in which the entire Cherokee nation would come.  Our town use to be called Telliquah - The Gathering Place.  Also near our home are the Celebration Grounds for the three local tribes.  There are stones that jettison out of the ground up to forty feet.  In front of those stones they would come, get married, and thank the Great Spirit for a blessed Spring, Summer, Winter and Fall.  On the stone they would carve markings as part of the celebrations.  Those markings are still there today and I love to just go and stare at their work.   They loved and appreciated the area that the Great Spirit had given them.

Then in 1829, gold was discovered in the area and those people coming in the area invaded the Indian Territory and when they killed animals for sport the Indians revolted and killed the invaders,  The government said that these people were too wild to live with the civilized nation and so they had to be rounded up and moved out of the way for progress sake.  (Indian Removal Act of 1830)  The government never even tried to get along with these people but moved them to Oklahoma.  Even today the city where these people are located is called, Telliquah, Oklahoma.  Read the book, "Trail of Tears" and you too will be in tears as to the way the US treated its people in the name of progress.

I give you this history lesson because these people had a better relationship and dependence on the Great Spirit for every provision than we do today. They looked to the Great Spirit for every need and watched for nature signs that are around us even today.

It is a shame that it will take a tragedy worse than what is taking place in Japan before many of us turn to the Savior of this world.  For those who parish in a future tragedy, it will have been too late. 

Sunday I picked daffodils near the celebration grounds and just dreamed of what it might have been like over 190 years ago as they sang and praised the Great Spirit for helping them survive another winter.  At that moment, I too was in praise and appreciation for what the Lord has given to me, you, and our nation.

Are you that appreciative to celebrate making through another day or a season in your life?  It may not be everything you wished for but still there is reason to celebrate.  Can you share that celebration with anyone?  Try!