Three
clergy women participating in an ecumenical prayer service at the Congregational
Church of West Brookfield, UCC, on September 14th never could have imagined
the gift they would receive that night.
Prior to the service, the youth of the church made 50 luminaries which
they placed outside. After the service, people gathered in the church
hall and the three ministers involved – Pastor Patricia Glore, Holly
Johnston of the Federated Church of Warren and the pastor of the town’s
Methodist church – stopped in Glore’s office. Then, Alan Hoffsommer,
a choir member, came in and said an American Indian was standing in
the church hall.
The three clergy women went out to find George Spotted Horse, a member
of the Lakota-Sioux tribe. The man told them that he had been driving
in Worcester when all of a sudden he got the message to drive west on
Route 9. He wasn’t told precisely where he was going, only that he would
know when he got there ... and that there would be lots of light shining.
While he passed several well-lit places, he knew they were not the right
ones, he said – until he saw the church, with its luminaries burning
outside.
He said he was also told that the people he was meant to find would
come to him, while no one else would pay him any attention. And that
was what happened – only Hoffsommer and the three clergy women paid
him any mind.
After explaining his journey, Spotted Horse invited the three clergy
women and Hoffsommer to take part in the ceremony of the peace pipe,
which they did out on the church’s front lawn.
“It was amazing. It was exciting. It was unexpected. It was tremendously
meaningful. It was a sacred time ... almost a moment out of time,” Glore
said. “It was a wonderful gift that we four received ... the gift of
the ceremony on such a day and in such a week. It was a gift of peace
which I felt settled in me.”
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