I am an American who follows Christ organically by faith. Some call me a Christian, some call me a heretic. Some denominations just can’t seem to believe that a Christian might possibly get a different interpretation out of parables and thus they must ‘not really be saved’. I write this article as a Christ follower who has studied the ancient history of my lineage that goes back to the ancient days of Germany, called Germania. This is a fictional ‘what if’ story to prayerfully bring light to the false ‘missionary’ work that was forced upon my ancestors and hopefully help educate us as to the mysterious global work of our Creator.

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What if I were born in the 7th century? The ancient lineage of my family comes from the Germanic tribes, of which were pagan. Country dwellers that lived off the land.  I imagine waking up to prepare for the upcoming solstice with my family. It’s been a yearly tradition for my ancestors for as long as I can remember…8 high days (sabbats) a year..we honor our ancestors and celebrate the changing of seasons, to give thanks for the blessings we have been given by the Divine. Our family had learned about the rituals that brought our minds into rest with these celebrations, the reflection of giving remembrance for those things we express gratitude for. We have our choice of who to give honor to, the nature spirits for keeping us shaded in the hot summer, the shining ones who look upon us and shine light as we need them to guide us, and we keep the memories of our ancestors alive in our minds and hearts as we pass on this beautiful culture to the next generation. Don’t forget gratitude. Don’t forget your family. Keep them written on the pages of your heart. Surely our ancestors live on forever, we have always been taught that they do. Eternal life is an age old belief.

These beautiful traditions were all we knew of, the only way we understood how to relate to the Divine within us. We knew there was something, some energy, a force of some kind, that kept us desiring to wake up each day. That stirring within our bosoms that kept us thirsting for more, that awakening that reverberated within our hearts. We couldn’t deny this inner voice that guided us along the paths of life, that led us to wellsprings of water for our weary souls. We were raised to make ready for more difficult days. We knew a time would come when our harmony would be disrupted, our traditions would be forbidden, and our land raped for it’s natural resources. We respected the land and only took what was necessary. We took in reverence, making each withdrawal from the land as a sacred moment, and giving back with new seeds planted. But we knew the land would be forsaken some day.

We embraced the land as the beauty that she was, feeling the connection we had with her as we felt the breeze through our hair and while she carried the fragrance of the incense into the heavens. We knew that life was a gift and to be embraced and lived abundantly. But we felt her groaning more each day. Something was coming. We knew it deep down and we prayed for the shining ones to guide us as those days grew darker.

The day came as we felt the earth rumbling beneath our bare feet. We were troubled within. I didn’t have the desire to make flower wreaths for the upcoming celebration, something wasn’t right. The rumbling grew louder and the small movements of the earth jolted harder and then we knew a herd of animals was on it’s way, but it wasn’t the sound of joyful prancing, it was the noise of war with death coming on the wind.

Large men on rugged beasts shrouded in silver armor came into our village with shouting and swords. I heard screams and crackling fire. The smell of death was thick and I didn’t understand this war that raged.

We didn’t understand their tongue and they didn’t understand ours.

Tears streaming.

Barely breathing.

Gulping for breath.

Knots in our throats.

What had we done wrong?

They held their symbol as high as they could and pointed in anger.

My mother, the medicine woman, who provided herbal remedies for the village, was forced to her knees.

She was made to be the example, I think. It was difficult to understand.

Why were they making her bow so low before this large red cross?

She shook her head in defiance, my sweet mother dear. She stood to her feet, against their command, and pointed to our altar. The altar in which we had paid homage to since the ancient of days. The place in which we gathered in remembrance of the Divine who looked after us for so many years. It was our family heritage. A heritage of gratitude, of love, in which we learned to be forgiving and to forgive. It was a ritual of remembrance and honor of what we had been awakened to within. Our spiritual practice that bound our community together in love.

The forest blazed red with flames, though not of the flames of our fire sacrifices of lavender and oil. This was the flames of death that seemed to rage from their nostrils.

My mother tried to run toward my sister to aid her with her bleeding wounds, but she was stopped by a burly man with the iron mask. His arms were wrapped in steel vines, tightly woven together as clothing. I had never seen anything like this before.

He pulled my mother by her hands and bound her wrists together, tightly he wound that cord around her. Then her feet.

His army lifted my mother to an altar.

And there they lit the altar on fire with their torches.

My mother screams in pain.

She looks me in the eye and says “Don’t forget gratitude. Don’t forget your spiritual journey. These dark days will end, but do not forget the ancestors and all they did for us.”

Her last breath was a deep silent sigh and then she left us that day.

I was next.

They forced me to my knees and pointed again to the red cross on their flag.

Deep breath.

Eyes wide open, trying to stay fully awake. Trying to understand their gestures as I look into their angry eyes.

They wanted us to pay homage to their altar, to their deity.

My head was forced to the ground.

In the fear of the moment, my father stepped forward and bowed his knee reverently. Calmly.

He motioned to our tribe to do the same.

They all bowed and we were spared… but over 4,000 had not been spared throughout our land.

I felt betrayal on my heart. We had forsaken the shining ones, the nature spirits, and the traditions of our ancestors…to save our lives.

We were made to cut down the trees and with each tree that fell, I pleaded for forgiveness. I am forced to take more than what was needed. In my heart, I gave thanks, I held each tree as sacred. I asked forgiveness.

Each pine and cypress that came down was a sacrifice for our lives.

My mother was sacrificed to this red cross god to make us join their customs.

We were forced into slavery and made to build their temples.

Where we once worshiped in nature, we were made to be encompassed by man made rocks built high above our heads.

Each seven days we were awakened at dawn to walk into the man made temple.

We listened to the words, but did not understand.

We then were made to kneel and bow our heads…. or suffer as mother did.

They called us witches and forbade us from collecting  leaves for ailments.

I wasn’t sure who this god was, the one in which they slaughtered innocent people..does such a god exist? Could they have been wrong? Perhaps they misunderstood the Divine.

For hundreds of years our people were made to pay homage to this other god. We had to learn their language so we could communicate. Those years were so dark. Each passing generation, the ancestors were becoming a distant memory. Our ancient writings were taken from us and any kind of writing we made was done in secret.

I could not deny this inner voice that spoke sweet grace to me. It was them who condemned my mother to death, not the Divine. It was burdensome to hear them shout that we were rejected by their god. We were hated and in turn they hated us too. But the tender grace that soothed my soul like honey kept me hoping for better days.

Was my mother’s life not enough for them? For their god?

They said their god gave his sacrifice too and that his blood appeased the anger, but the anger boiled hotter as each day passed.

I began to wonder who their god really was. Was his sacrifice enough or not? Their religion confused me, but their religious practices seemed all too familiar.

Their rituals seemed to mimic that of our own.

The circles, the chants, the burning incense.

They spoke words known as Latin, those words were spoken over flat bread and wine then shared among the people.

Could it be that they followed a different spirit, a chaotic being that didn’t value life?

In the ancient days we gave the outer regions to the chaos beings. I began to pray that chaos would be bound.

The ages passed on.

In my old age, shoulders hunched, my great granddaughter comes to me in a vision and proclaims good news.

The chaotic ones were misguiding the armies of the red cross.

The shining ones had given insight to the people… a tool of lights that sat upon their tables. The words of the ancestors were studied for many years and she called them translations. The translating words were seen through the lights upon their tables. Word after word. Ancient documents passed down, somehow..through the ages. The words had been preserved.

She learned that the words of the red cross army were misunderstood..by those steel men on beasts.

They had war and power on their minds and their fists raged for control.

But those days were coming to a close and the ancestors were being remembered again.

My mother was remembered. The sacrifice in fire to their red cross god had not gone unnoticed by the Divine.

My dear girl told me that the Divine indeed had a son..and this Divine being loved us so much that the son was placed on the final altar, the sacrifice was made to bring those angry people to peace. Some listened, some did not. But their land established laws to protect our offspring and their faith would be held as sacred by their new law. Even if the leaders did not agree on our faith, they had to protect us so we could worship in peace.

I may not agree with how those angry men stole our ancestry, our heritage, and raped the land, but good came of it. After all the horrific years, our stories had not been forgotten after all.

The deaths of over 4,000 of our people’s was not forgotten, not forsaken, but added into their books of memory..she called it history.

And now here I sit, in my present day, with the lights upon my table. It’s called a computer.

Perhaps many centuries of religion has had people confused about the grace of God…maybe our ancestors, both Christian and Pagan, may have had some things wrong, some things right. But here we are today, seeking the Divine in the only language and vocabulary we know. May our actions not resemble the misguided chaotic ones who killed innocent people on behalf of ‘God’.

Surely that’s not the way Christ intended for his Gospel to be proclaimed.

Just as Americans have had to come to grips with the fact that our American ancestors killed Natives to take their land, may Christians come to grips with the fact that past misguided armies killed our ancestors unnecessarily.

Maybe we all have come to understand the Divine Creator in the only way we know how. Only He knows our hearts…and we get the easy part..love one another.