Native

Kaitlin Curtice has given us a great gift in writing and publishing this book. She takes us on a journey as she talks about identity and soul-searching as we navigate our faith and seek relationship with God.

Kaitlin is part of the Potawatomi Nation and she writes about her process of reconnecting with her Native American roots and how that impacted her Christian faith.

She is a gifted writer, using beautiful imagery and poetry as she tells her stories.

Favorite quotes:

“As I learn more about my own story, I am realizing that the bloodline of God is connected to everything, no matter how it was first created in the beginning.”

“If all the world is a commodity, how poor we grow. When all the world is a gift in motion, how wealthy we become.”

“As humans, we are simply asked to walk in the mystery of our identities one day at a time, one step at a time, one question at a time. We are simply asked to know and be known with the whole of creation and our relatives in humanity. But to do that, we have to accept, challenge, and process who we are along the way.”

“We'll never solve the way to a new life in our heads; we have to live our way into a new kind of thinking.”

“The point is that while we are here, Mystery asks us to set aside what disrupts our humanity and belonging for the chance to see what is good and to fix the things that have been broken by hate.”

“What does it look like to deconstruct and reconstruct as a people, as kin, to take on the work of creating a postcolonial church for the sake of all of us, for the sake of the oppressed, for the sake of the earth? Is it possible?”

I highly recommend this book to anyone and everyone.

Books about spirituality are tricky for me. I was raised in an ultra conservative faith, and have spent the better part of the past 25 years deconstructing those teachings to come to a place of freedom with the beliefs I currently hold. There aren't many teachers whose words I feel like I can trust. The list is pretty short. It's exciting for me when I can add an author to that list.

Much of the deconstruction I did in my faith was in the area of the patriarchal structures I had been fed for years. I hadn't, honestly, given much room or thought to the issue of race. And then along comes Kaitlin B. Curtice, and her magnificent new book, and I feel like once again I am starting on a journey.

Native is beautifully written - I think Curtice is truly a poet - and is also one of the most uncomfortable reading experiences I've faced in a long while. Curtice is a member of the Potawatomi tribe, and as she shares her own faith journey, she challenges so much of the existing religious structure in ways I hadn't even thought about. Her voice is gentle but insistent - she asserts her right to be heard, and allows her readers to make space for their own stories, no matter where in the telling we find ourselves.

I am so thrilled this book found its way into my hands. I plan to start reading it again almost immediately, because there is so much to learn from its pages. I cannot recommend highly enough that you get this book into your hands.