Trailer for SANCTUARY Series
Introducing “Sanctuary”, a 10 part video series about healing mind, body, spirit and relationships from the effects of colonialism:
S – Sacred Place, Healing Pathway (Sanctuary)
A – Access (Gate)
N – Need (Altar of Sacrifice)
C – Cleansing (Washbasin)
T – Teachings (Table of Shewbread)
U – Unity (Lampstand)
A – Abiding (Altar of Incense)
R – Reliance (Ark of the Covenant – Manna)
Y – Yoked (Ark of the Covenant – 10 Commandments)
+ – the cross-our calling (Ark of the Covenant – Budded Almond Branch)
Sacred Place, Healing Pathway: Introduction
Episode 1
In this video program, our family and friends will share with you how we experience sanctuary on the “pathway for keeping”, as we decolonize our full human experience of mind (healing from the generational impact of trauma, addictions, and lifestyle imbalance), body (reviving physical wellness into daily living progressively), spirit (growing in a restorative and developmental relationship with our triune Creator God) and our social/environmental relationships (living in harmonious relationship with nature and others in God’s Kingdom). Please join us on the Journey Home!
Access: Gate
Episode 2
Accessing a restorative relationship with our Creator God through knowing and following Jesus involves our whole human experience. We access, or come to an understanding of our Creator by healing our mind. We give our Creator access to our heart through how we care for our bodies. We access reconciliation with our Creator through a spiritually intimate relationship with Him. And we can create access for others to desire their Creator when the Holy Spirit works through our relationships.
Our family and friends will share by our life stories how to access a restorative relationship with God through mind, body, spirit and relationship to nature and others.
Need: Altar of Sacrifice
Episode 2: Gate
Episode 3
The next element in the sanctuary courtyard, just inside the entry gate, was an altar of sacrifice. The purpose of this altar was to burn sacrifices brought by the people to pay for their wrongs of breaking God’s laws of love. It was the place where they repented and acknowledged their need for reconciliation with God. The only way for their wrongs against God to be reconciled was by the sacrifice of a perfect lamb. This perfect lamb represented God’s plan to pay the price himself through His son Jesus Christ, who lived a perfect life in order to reconcile our debt of wrongs against His Ways of Love and restore us to a right relationship with Him.
A little over 2000 years ago, God sacrificed himself in the form of His Son Jesus to pay the penalty of death for everyone who has broken His Way of Love by hurting ourselves, others, and Him. He did this to fulfill the need of all human beings to be restored into right relationship with Him once again.
Our family & friends will share with you how reconciliation with Creator God has enabled us to decolonize our mind, body, spirit, and relationship with nature and others. In this way, we are able to thrive more fully as our Creator intended for us.
Cleansing: Washbasin
Episode 4
A practice that Huu-ay-aht has done for millennia is the practice of ʔuusimč. Our elders tell us that when we cleanse our bodies, our minds can be made clean, making us aware of ourselves. Spiritual bathing, ʔuusimč, pronounced Oomsootch in English, is done in many ways, but the central characteristics of Oomsootch include the daily practice of getting up early before the sun comes up and going to a place that is secluded where no one except the Creator can hear your prayers.
The Oomsootch process includes alternating between prayer and submerging our entire body in the water to cleanse our whole selves daily. This process has been described as a regeneration, a new birth, a renewing, cleansing, and washing away of defilement through our spiritual communion with our Creator. Robert Dennis, a Huu-ay-aht elder, describes Oomsootch as a type of baptism that our people have always practiced.
Baptism in the Bible is a washing away of sins to be saved. The Bible says in Titus 3:5, “He saved us through the washing of the Holy Spirit whom he poured on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior.” Our Creator taught us these ways from our beginning.
Teachings: Table of Bread
Episode 5
During the colonial christian European land expansion, so-called “christian churches” joined efforts with government powers to do whatever it took to control the People’s of the Americas, Africa, New Zealand and Australia, all for the purpose of taking the homeland that our Creator had given to us.
But in the reading the Bible for ourselves, we come to understand that it is severely distorted and misrepresented by the very people who brought it over and who have professed to follow it. In the Bible, we can also see many ways God was already teaching our People for generations before the printed book ever came to us.
Unity: Lampstand
Episode 6 (COMING SOON!)
Many ancient name people after characteristics of who they are or will become. It’s the same with the ancient People who wrote the Bible. They understood the hayupa of a name because this teaching was given to them by Creator God.
The Bible has some important things to say about names, especially the name of God. We hear in Exodus 34: 5-7 that God proclaims His name to be His character, which is described as “merciful, gracious, patient, abounding in goodness and truth, merciful, forgiving, and just.”
In the story of Moses, after God leads the Isrealites out of slavery in Egypt, they come to a mountain in the dessert. On that mountain God speaks words to the People that sound like a proposal of marriage. In Exodus 19: 4-6 He says, “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”