Alaska and its saints

Some weeks ago I was going on my nightly walk with earphones in listening to podcasts when I came upon a podcast entitled "The American Martyrs." It described some history of the missionary efforts to Alaska, the cultures found there, and of course the hagiographies of the saints who gave their lives for the Church. I was riveted. I asked my children some days later, as they go annually to St. Peter the Aleut Orthodox Summer Camp, if they knew anything about St. Peter. They didn't. Hearing that I was a bit ill at ease. This history is our history. As American faithful I felt it my duty not only to learn more (as my understanding of the narrative is certainly full of holes), but also to pass this knowledge on to my children.

It so happens that my wife had a terrible fall last week. She fell in the kitchen reaching for something on a high shelf and broke multiple bones in the ankle area, one of which pierced her skin and lay exposed agains her leg. She was rushed to the hospital and has today completed her second and final surgery. Given the opportunity to sit in numerous dreary rooms filled with alternating sleeping and nervous people milling about, I opened a book by Fr. Michael J. Oleksa called Alaskan Missionary Spirituality to pass the time.

It's a great book so far. The introduction gives a solid historical prospective to the selections that make up the book. Having just listened to the aforementioned podcast I was able to jump right back into the cold, the strange foods, cultural dynamics, and monks' evangelical fervor of the time. The native peoples seem primed for the Good News to "complete" their cosmology and the monks chose to "baptize" what they found by learning the languages, respecting the people who flocked to them, and getting in small, dangerous ships to boat from remote village to village. The preconceived notions I had about native life were quickly dispatched. I'm looking forward to more reading time tonight.