Christmas Moccasins

This is a compelling story about courage and forgiveness told from a Native American perspective. On Christmas Eve a young child and his grandmother are robbed of both their coats and Grandmother's moccasins by three drunken youths, and walking home barefoot in the snow Grandmother loses two toes to frostbite. She spends the final quarter of the following year preparing extraordinarily beautiful beaded moccasins to give to her assailants at Christmas. Ray Buckley is Lakota, Tlingit, and Scots, a United Methodist. His stories are a conscious attempt to contextualize Christian teaching within a tribal way of thinking. His theological basis can be a bit fuzzy, and at times he is more mystically intuitive than biblically grounded, so each of his stories ought to be be examined carefully. One potentially concerning element of this story is that in the scene on the front cover where Grandmother is beading the moccasins for her assailants, she is pictured against a background of an abstractly stylized dreamcatcher composed of wintry trees, with figures of young men below them. Traditionally a dreamcatcher is modeled after a spider's web and is believed to catch bad dreams or thoughts. Picturing the young men within the dreamcatcher seems to be the author's way of showing how Grandmother's courage and faith help her defeat her fear. It is a conscious effort to appropriate a culturally pagan symbol for a redemptive interpretation, and I'm not settled on whether this is a good use of the symbol. Another potentially difficult element of the story is that Grandmother performs a water-cleansing ceremony before making the moccasins, and again before delivering them: Carefully she dipped her hands into the basin again and again, patting the length of her hair, her shoulders, her torso, and her legs. In October, with no stream unfrozen, it was her way of cleansing her spirit -- the way of beginning something sacred. In the twilight of the kitchen, my grandmother was praying. I am not familiar with this kind of spiritual cleansing ceremony, but it reminds me enough of smudging (wafting fragrant herbal smoke as part of prayer) to suggest that this may be another cultural practice rooted in pagan tradition. However, one might simply interpret this as the author does, as a way of ritually cleansing oneself from the effects of another's violence, when a full bath is impossible. Although these cultural elements are somewhat troubling, Grandmother's forgiveness has a ringing beauty that is well worthy of setting before children's eyes, and this forgiveness is presented through a lens of faith and grace. As she sets out to deliver her gifts, the reader sees an owl (traditionally considered a harbinger of terror and death) staring out from the page as Grandmother says to the child, "We're here to do the Creator's work." When she hands the gifts to her assailants, she says simply "I wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas. God bless you," and they ar

This book by a Native American author provides a beautiful Christmas message ~~ actually a message for all times.

This is a wonderful book on true forgiveness. I used it as part of a Native American mission study, but also used it in a school setting, youth ministry and with my grandchildren. The message is timeless. I recommend all of Ray Buckley's books.

Quite simply beautiful. A story for all ages that gives hope to human kind.