We Remember: A Litany for the Land

The Christian faith asks us to hold many truths in tension with one another. 

We plant our feet on Dakota land, on layers of soil and stories

and acknowledge that people and places contain multitudes.  

We remember

the generous gifts of creation 

and God’s promise of enough.

We remember

glacial melt, the birth pangs of prairie, 

ancestors singing, Water is Life!

We remember 

acres sold and treaties breaking, 

settlers unsettling and systems taking.

We remember  

the legacy and loss of bison, 

of nations oppressed and removed.

We remember 

the isolation of immigration, homesteads 

far from new neighbors and old country.

We remember 

Dakota people already and not yet, 

and resilient voices in this generation. 

We remember 

farmers who labor to feed the world, 

who know wind and weather in their bones. 

We remember

the call to turn from the myth of scarcity, 

to interrupt patterns of harm with justice.

We remember

we belong to each other and to this land, 

all relations of the God who re-members. 

Re-member us, O God. Amen.

Permissions and Use: This litany is written by Meta Herrick Carlson and comes from a liturgy co-created with composer Carol Meier called “Peace of the Prairie: A Liturgy for Here and Now”. The project was commissioned by Shalom Hill Farm in Windom, MN as part of the Prairie Spirituality Project, 2023.