<\/p>\n
Looking out at Eloheh. Photo Credit: Jim Sequeira<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Carl Jung once observed that the greed and speed of Western culture was like a virus that could destroy the whole world. Sitting on my porch at Eloheh Farm & Seeds in Oregon\u2019s Willamette Valley, watching the oak savanna we\u2019re restoring, I\u2019ve come to believe he was right. But I\u2019ve also discovered something that gives me hope: the antidote has been here all along, embedded in Indigenous ways of knowing that predate empire by thousands of years.<\/p>\n The Infection We Can\u2019t See<\/strong><\/p>\n We are like fish swimming in water who don\u2019t realize we\u2019re surrounded by water until someone pulls us out. The water we swim in is empire consciousness\u2014a way of thinking so pervasive that we mistake it for reality itself. It operates on a simple logic: hierarchy, transaction, speed, and accumulation. More is better. Faster is better. Power over others is how you survive.<\/p>\n This has infected our spirituality too. The marriage between Christianity and empire runs deeper than most realize. It didn\u2019t start with Constantine, though that\u2019s when it became formalized. Around 100 A.D., under severe Roman persecution, church leaders began contextualizing their structure to mirror the empire\u2019s hierarchy\u2014bishops like field marshals, pastors like centurions. They were trying to survive, trying to relate to the dominant power. But domination and oppression runs through Western Christianity like the threads of a blood-soaked tapestry. Once you compromise with Caesar, you lose what\u2019s essential to the faith. You lose the revolutionary teaching that the last shall be first, that we don\u2019t lord over one another but serve each other.<\/p>\n The Medicine of Sacred Disruption<\/strong><\/p>\n This is where the tricksters come in\u2014those sacred clowns that every healthy culture needs. I see the prophet Ezekiel this way. Some call him priest, prophet, and poet, but I\u2019d add another word, one that Richard Rohr used in his book\u00a0The Tears of Things<\/em>: \u201cquirky.\u201d Ezekiel is a trickster bringing us a sense of imbalance, of discombobulation. He changes the ordinary into the extraordinary and makes us look at things differently. He\u2019s a truth-teller, but not in the way you expect truth to be told.<\/p>\n I remember watching a bean dance ceremony down in Hopiland with a friend. The Kosharis\u2014sacred clowns\u2014were moving through the crowd of men renewing their vows to walk in a good way. One Koshari started pointing at a guy, and everyone was laughing. I asked what he was saying. My Hopi friend translated: \u201cHe\u2019s asking why, if this man claims to be so religious, people see his truck parked behind widow so-and-so\u2019s house every Friday night\u2014and he\u2019s married.\u201d Truth-telling at its best. Funny, but deadly serious. Sometimes we need that altered reality to shake us into understanding what\u2019s really happening.<\/p>\n Right now, in this political moment, many people feel utterly helpless. The systems feel too big, the corruption too deep, the machinery of power too entrenched. We watch the news and feel the weight of what\u2019s happening, but we don\u2019t know what to do that would actually matter. This feeling of powerlessness is itself part of empire\u2019s water\u2014it wants you to believe that only grand gestures, only people with platforms, only those with access to power can change anything.<\/p>\n But the trickster works differently. The sacred clown doesn\u2019t go through the front door of the palace. They come in through the side, through the unexpected, through the small gesture that reveals the emperor has no clothes.<\/p>\n Here in Portland, near where I live, we saw this perfectly when Trump sent federal troops these past few months. There\u2019s a saying that captures how different cities responded: When the federal troops arrived in Los Angeles, they said \u201cwe will fight them.\u201d When they arrived in Chicago, they said \u201cwe will fight them.\u201d When they arrived in Portland, we said \u201cwe will make them watch 12 hours of improv a day!\u201d<\/p>\n And that\u2019s exactly what happened. The streets filled with people in inflatable frog and shark costumes. Grannies showed up in rocking chairs, knitting calmly in front of armed officers. Crowds of 1980s disco roller skaters appeared out of nowhere. Every morning, people brought doughnuts and coffee to the troops. This was sacred clowning at its finest\u2014resistance that refused to meet violence with violence, that instead used absurdity and humor to reveal the ridiculousness of sending armed forces against people offering pastries.<\/p>\n These acts of holy disruption work because they don\u2019t play by empire\u2019s rules. Empire understands force meeting force. It knows how to respond to violence with greater violence. But what does it do with grandmas knitting? How does it respond to people in shark suits? The cognitive dissonance is the point. These acts pull us out of the water of empire logic and help us see the absurdity of what we\u2019ve been accepting as normal.<\/p>\n Your acts of disruption don\u2019t need to be loud or dramatic to pull people out of unreality and shake them into seeing what\u2019s true. It\u2019s the neighbor who, when everyone else is posting outrage on social media, shows up with soup when someone is sick. It\u2019s the person who interrupts a conversation where someone is being dehumanized\u2014not with a lecture, but with a story that reminds everyone of their own humanity. It\u2019s the family that turns off the news one evening a week and invites others to share a meal, to be known. It\u2019s the community that plants a garden on abandoned land and shares the harvest, demonstrating that another way is possible.<\/p>\n When you slow down to the three-mile-an-hour pace of walking with your neighbor, you\u2019re disrupting empire time. When you share rather than hoard, you\u2019re disrupting empire economics. When you honor the personhood of someone the system deems disposable, you\u2019re disrupting empire logic.<\/p>\n The powerful hate this because they can\u2019t control it. You can\u2019t legislate against neighbors caring for each other. You can\u2019t build a wall against stories that humanize. You can\u2019t militarize against people who\u2019ve decided that relationships matter more than winning. You can\u2019t shoot at someone offering you a doughnut without revealing exactly what you are.<\/p>\n Story Them\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n Tricksters often work through symbols and stories because those are technologies that circumvent the logic of empire. There\u2019s something that happens when you write things down\u2014that written thing becomes THE truth, rather than the story becoming a living truth. Indigenous peoples have been sharing stories since time immemorial, not because we care whether they \u201creally happened\u201d in some modern scientific sense, but because the point is not the truth OF the story, but the truth IN the story.<\/p>\n It is a sacred act to be a storykeeper. My wife, Edith, and I spent three days this past summer with Lenore Three Stars, interviewing Lakota elders from morning till evening. These were people telling stories from their families and tribes\u2014stories thousands of years old, still being told. We were elated to sit there and hear these things. It was one of the most sacred experiences we had ever had. Our people know how to keep stories, as I\u2019m sure ancient Israel did, and other ancient cultures too. They had story keepers.<\/p>\n There\u2019s something subversive about oral tradition. The written word can be controlled, edited, burned, rewritten by those in power. But stories passed from mouth to mouth, from generation to generation, carry truths that slip through the fingers of empire. This is why, throughout history, dominant cultures have tried to silence the storytellers, to suppress the languages, to interrupt the passing down of memory. They know that stories are how people remember who they are when the official narrative tells them to forget.<\/p>\n So, in this political moment, your act of resistance might be becoming a storykeeper. Tell the stories of people who\u2019ve been erased. Tell the stories of times when communities came together. Tell the stories of the grannies knitting in front of federal troops, of neighbors who showed up when it mattered, of small acts of solidarity that remind us we are not powerless, that this is how empires crumble\u2014not all at once in some dramatic revolution, but slowly, as people remember there\u2019s another way to be human together.<\/p>\n The Vision of Eloheh with Creation<\/strong><\/p>\n This brings me to what I\u2019ve spent decades rediscovering: a construct that exists across Indigenous cultures in North America and, I believe, throughout the world. In Cherokee, we call it Eloheh. The Navajo call it H\u00f3zh\u01eb\u0301. When I did my doctoral work, I interviewed leaders and others from 45 different Indigenous groups across the U.S. and Canada. Every single one said, \u201cOh yeah, we have that [construct].\u201d<\/p>\n Eloheh describes a state of being when all is as it should be, as it was created to be. It means people are at peace, not at war. The earth is being cared for and producing in abundance, so no one goes hungry. People are treating each other fairly, and no one is a stranger for very long. Some call it the harmony way.<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t self-help spirituality about pursuing your own happiness. In fact, pursuing your own happiness probably won\u2019t make you happy. It\u2019s about universal responsibility\u2014responsibility to all creation, to each other, to future generations. When we make decisions, we look seven generations down, to our great-great-great-great-grandchildren, and ask how this will affect them. We\u2019re so addicted to getting what we want right now, within our span of attention\u2014maybe 24 hours. We don\u2019t realize what it\u2019s like to be in a culture that sometimes waits decades and generations for things to happen.<\/p>\n Let me ask you this: What would we call a relationship that\u2019s just one-way? Narcissism, maybe. A stalker. It\u2019s not healthy. It\u2019s dysfunctional. Western people are beginning to say, \u201cOh, nature matters, creation matters. I see God in nature.\u201d That\u2019s good. But it\u2019s still a one-way relationship. What is the agency that nature has FOR us and TOWARD us? What makes it not a one-way relationship?<\/p>\n God\u2019s \u201cgrace\u2019, Creator\u2019s \u201cpresence\u201d, Universal \u201cspirit\u201d, flows through creation and gives us so much\u2014the ability to calm us, inspire us, feed us, shelter us. How can we ignore that and say, \u201cThis relationship is just for me\u201d? We have a serious obligation to take care of creation, because this is God\u2019s gift being expressed directly to us. When we understand how Creator works through nature and that this is meant to be a two-way relationship, we come much closer to harmony.<\/p>\n The Practice of Slow Transformation<\/strong><\/p>\n Someone once spoke of the \u201cthree-mile-an-hour God\u201d\u2014the pace at which Jesus walked with his disciples. Americans are so addicted to this fast-paced life. We want everything done not just in our generation, but in our lifetimes, in our span of attention. But when we learn to talk with one another, to dialogue, to learn about each other\u2019s families and what makes us cry and laugh, we become more apt to work on a consensus basis. Everyone has a voice. It gives everyone dignity.<\/p>\n When I was a pastor in Carson City, Nevada, we eventually ran our church this way. We met once a month, and everybody got to share. Yes, things slow down. They don\u2019t move as fast. But that\u2019s not a detriment. That\u2019s a blessing. We have time to think. We have time to think about how human the other person is. We have time to build relationships. We don\u2019t need to agree on everything, but we need to love one another.<\/p>\n I used to think if I became this great speaker, traveling the world telling thousands of people the message, things would change. That\u2019s not how things really change. Here at Eloheh, we\u2019re a demonstration farm, a demonstration model and school. I encourage people to start exactly where you are\u2014in your own church, your own community, your own affinity group. Begin to treat yourselves, each other, and those non-human creatures around you with the kind of respect and love we\u2019re talking about.<\/p>\n It\u2019s about mustard seeds, right? If you use your imagination, a picture\u2019s worth a thousand words. If you can begin to enact this in your own community in any small way and let it grow, that\u2019s how things really change.<\/p>\n The Way Forward<\/strong><\/p>\n There\u2019s a verse in Ezekiel that captures this whole vision: \u201cI will treat you as respect for my own name requires, not as your own conduct deserves.\u201d God\u2019s only measure is God\u2019s self. This is the God who runs toward us, not waiting for us to earn it. This is exactly what we see in that story from Luke 15\u2014the prodigal son has his whole speech prepared, but the father doesn\u2019t even hear it. All that matters is the love, the kindness. God treats us according to who God is, not according to who we are.<\/p>\n And if that\u2019s true, we have an invitation to be that way toward each other. Toward all of creation. Toward the seven generations to come. This is the harmony way. This is Eloheh. This is the alternative to empire\u2019s greed and speed. It won\u2019t make headlines. It won\u2019t trend on social media. But it will change the world, one small garden, one conversation, one restored relationship at a time.<\/p>\n The question isn\u2019t whether you can stop the infection of empire consciousness everywhere at once. The question is: where will you plant your mustard seed today? What small act of sacred disruption will you offer that helps someone\u2014maybe even yourself\u2014see through the unreality we\u2019ve been swimming in? How will you slow down long enough to remember that you are not alone, that you are part of a web of relationships that extends back seven generations and forward seven more?<\/p>\n The empire wants you to feel powerless. The trickster knows better. Maybe today your resistance looks like putting on a shark costume. Maybe it looks like knitting in a rocking chair. Maybe it looks like offering coffee to someone who expects a fight. Maybe it looks like planting seeds, sharing a meal, telling a story that\u2019s been passed down for generations.<\/p>\n Start where you are. Begin small. Trust the slow work of transformation. Harmony is waiting.<\/p>\n Editor\u2019s Note:\u00a0Previously published\u00a0on\u00a0Randy Woodley\u2019s Substack\u00a0on\u00a0January 6, 2026.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Looking out at Eloheh. Photo Credit: Jim Sequeira Indigenous Wisdom Offers an Alternative to Empire\u2019s Greed and Speed Carl Jung once observed that the greed and speed of Western culture was like a virus that could destroy the whole world. Sitting on my porch at Eloheh Farm & Seeds in Oregon\u2019s Willamette Valley, watching the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21994,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[2092,7268,5877,1048],"class_list":{"0":"post-21993","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-christian-living","8":"tag-disruption","9":"tag-eloheh","10":"tag-harmony","11":"tag-sacred"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Indigenous Wisdom Offers an Alternative to Empire\u2019s Greed and Speed<\/h3>\n