Day Two: Be the change.

Wakan tanka. The words are sung loud and high, almost in falsetto. They are the opening words in the prayer song Uncle Floyd sings for us at the end of a long, wonderful day.

It’s hard to know how old they are, these words. Mostly because no one knows for sure how long the Lakota have lived on this “island” (as they call North America) as a distinct people with a distinct language. It’s safe to say they’re older than the words of Jesus.

They’re typically translated “Great Spirit” or “Great Mystery." But “wakan” means holy or sacred. So “Sacred Spirit” is also implied. When sung in the Lakota manner they carry an almost tangible power, like the energy that hums under a big electrical line.

Wakan tanka, Floyd sings, in a voice that evokes the spirit of Crazy Horse and raises the hair on my the back of my neck. And after that I am lost in the dense haze of the Lakota language, and in the pleasant remembrance of a great day.

My wife and I are approaching our second anniversary. She wrote me an email yesterday to say that with my being away, she’s had the chance to reflect on our time together as a couple. She’s coming to understand what it means to be a partner with someone, and to build a life together. “I mean build almost literally,” she wrote, “like putting up something strong, and using our muscles and our brains and our hearts to build a life.”

It has taken me some time to understand this concept, too, for joining your life in partnership with someone you love is surely one of life’s deepest mysteries.

What Robyn didn’t know as she was writing those words is that, while touching my heart, she was also providing the perfect metaphor for describing the day we had here on Pine Ridge.

Floyd’s “sister” Mary Ann (technically, she’s his first cousin, but in the Lakota way he invariably described her as his sister) lives alone in a modest home in Pine Ridge itself, the town I mean. Her neighbor is an alcoholic and a drug addict.

I don’t know the full story behind this, only that there are two houses on her neighbor’s lot, and one of them, the one immediately adjacent to Mary Ann's place, burned down, leaving a charred, ugly ruin standing just outside Mary Ann's main door.

So per Robert Frost’s theory that good fences make good neighbors, our job was to build a good fence, a visual barrier between Mary’s pleasant home and the dilapidated handwork of her alcoholic neighbor.

We cleared the site of brambles and dead tree branches. We pushed down the tallest of the burned out walls. With the site clear, the fence went up one post at a time, one panel at a time. We used our muscles to dig the post holes and to break the rock that lay buried there, and to lift the pre-made panels in place. We used our eyes to site the line of the fence -- is it straight, is it plumb, is it true? We then tamped the earth down hard around the post holes and sank screws to anchor the panels to the posts.

No one of us could have built this fence alone. We needed each other. And when we finished building the fence, we varnished it. It wasn't perfect, but it was still beautiful.

But Wilson students being Wilson students, they didn’t stop there. The fence went up sort of blindingly fast. I think Natalie imagined it would take us the whole day to clear the site and build the fence itself. But with so much muscle power and enthusiasm, so much sheer energy at work on the project, it was clear we would finish in just a matter of a couple of hours.

So the students used their minds and their hearts to imagine other possibilities for blessing Mary Ann, and for beautifying her property still more.

Connor imagined painting the small wooden retaining wall that ran the length of the sidewalk leading to her door. Another student (I don't remember who) drove with Gavin (of Conscious Alliance) to the hardware store to buy sandpaper, varnish, paint and a phalanx of brushes. And a movement was born.

Mary Ann’s friend Ted, also of Pine Ridge, supervised us. And teased us. “Your brush is upside down,” he said to a number of startled painters who quizzically examined their brushes, until they saw the big grin on Ted's face and realized they’d been had.

I thought, Those brushes aren’t upside down, cause they’re not even brushes. Beauty and color are flowing out of them with every stroke, like so many magic wands.

But even that was wrong, The color and the beauty and the change we effected were not the result of magic, of course, but of hard, honest work; of people joining together, using their muscles and their brains and their hearts to put up something strong and lasting.

Mary Ann was overjoyed with the whole process, and slightly overwhelmed. She wanted to do this work all on her own but the job was obviously too big for her. So she told us that she had prayed for this day, for someone to come and help her and that when we arrived she couldn’t believe it. It’s finally here, she thought! Tunkasila (or Grandfather, another Lakota way of addressing the Divine One) has sent these people to me!

When we left some seven hours later, Mary Ann hugged Justin’s neck and wouldn’t let him go.

We then took our leave, got showers and had dinner together at Natalie and Floyd's. As I finally sat there at the end of the day, listening to Floyd (and Natalie) sing that prayer, I realized I had learned my own lesson this day.

I’m embarrassed to say that after four years as the chaplain at Warren Wilson, this is my first service trip. I am watching and learning for myself that when you turn Warren Wilson students loose in the world, you’d better be prepared to see that world change for the better, and far more so than even you thought was possible.

The poverty and desperation on Pine Ridge run deep. Obviously you can’t change all that in a day. You can only change it one brush stroke at a time, one hammer blow, one shovel full of dirt at a time.

You change it one house at a time, one life at a time.

And maybe the life that’s changed, maybe that’s your life.