Mitak’ Oyasin with Leander “Russ” MacDonald

I think what you’re talking about but dr.Wasson so that were you know how let’s use how its shared is you know means a couple different things but I think the thing is that you could say we’re all we’re all related everything is related you know so but the way I the way I understand what you’re talking about is spirituality and spirituality itself is that is how we carry ourselves is our relationship with the Creator and so I had a difficult time earlier in my life and regard to out gone drugs and so and the only way I was able to overcome to house to spirituality and but I couldn’t find it so I was going around to these different churches that’s going to ceremonies and I couldn’t find the spirituality that everybody was talking about and eventually what happened is that it maybe just took up enough times or searching until finally I just clicked and then I was able to get sober and so within that sober life is that I come to understand is that there everything that we do is gonna have some type of consequence so as we move ahead and if but if we’re always doing things that are good then what’s going to come the consequent that’s going to come back on it’s a good thing and so you see within Christianity and within the Bible you see it in just regular traditions of people say or whatever or do we do is going to come back on you oh yeah so how you live your life is related so it’s kind of a circular piece this concept but I think the most part and regarded interrelationship of all things is a spirituality piece that is in regard to how we live our daily lives and just having faith that things are going to turn out the way they’re supposed to turn out that were only a piece of this larger concept of spirituality we’re only we’re only here to do our little part is it you know as rust McDonald as he was he supposed to just be here and be this president of this college and that’s the life or perhaps it’s Russ McDonald being a president of a college to implement an educational initiative that creates a opportunity for some in person or a student that ends up being the President of the United States we don’t we don’t know this we don’t we don’t we don’t know that part but what we do know is that if we have faith in a creator and that plan for us that all those things are going to work out that all those things are that are all those things will be the way they’re supposed to be so we don’t worry about that too much and I think the thing is that we just do the job that’s in front of us today and realizing that out but that doesn’t mean that we can have we can have a short-term intermediate term or intermediate our long term goals for our lives or for our educational systems it just it just means that we do today in an end somewhere down the road five years we look back and we see where we’re at we’ve seen what we’ve done and then maybe we see what the plan was for us for that short period of time or maybe we see what the plan was for our entire lives maybe we had to go through everything for whatever we went through in order to be who we are today and so that’s a spirituality piece of this and interrelatedness of everything that’s happening so my interaction with you today my interaction with you is it’s good maybe it produces something today maybe it affects somebody down the line today that’s going to help them and I think that to find the spirituality piece that we all that we all continue to search for you know so or try to live on a daily basis and those things are all interrelated in that sense and so or that’s that the spiritual nosov of the things that we eat the things that are grown and are provided to us the animals for alia to provide themselves for us to live you know and so those things are all a part of that picture and so we need to that and if you come down to the core of all the spirituality and all the values of American Indians I think for the most part especially up here in the Great Plains is that this value of respect we respect one another and we treat each other with respect and then we’re on equal ground in regard to that when somebody looks down on somebody else and we’re off of what our culture belief system says it says to how to treat one another whether you’re whether whatever whether you come from a Dakota and that’s astonish or Christianity background Christianity doesn’t say look down on people you know so so there’s parallels I think between these between these two belief systems that we all have to recognize and know and really live this live this what we’re preaching in a sense if we’re going to be a traditional person and live that way if you’re going to be a Christian and call yourself a Christian then live that way and then and continue on down that path and do what you’re supposed to do as a Christian do you do what you’re supposed to do as a traditional person these are these are the things that I think in regard to spirituality how this interrelate and this is and what happens I think is that if you’re trying to live that way I believe that there’s a there’s a blessing on you that your way is made for you that the things are going to be in place to put that out that do you need in order to have successful whatever you’ve been assigned to do even though you know I don’t know may not know what the assignment is and so yeah and you just going on the road and you say well there’s there’s this job but there’s you know as you do that job there’s things that open up and have to happen and so you do the things that you need to do and then with the resources that are provided to you and I think that’s the I think that’s where we end up I think that’s we end up in regard to spirituality and more than that you know if you talk to these older guys and you hear these older stories and if you read it in the Bible people have the ability to heal people have the ability to bring people back from the dead and if that end and if you really carry your faith in such a way in that strong a strong belief system whether you’re a Christian or a traditional person and then what happens then is that you be able to do those things and because of your belief because of your faith and but those are gifts that are provided to you it’s not us that kills people it’s that power of the Creator that uses us in order to heal that person it stopped the same that’s in the same sense in regard to our educator is that the God has given me this life in order to help all its education you know so I think that those things have to be recognized the spiritual piece of this and I in my perspective that’s that’s the importance of that