🪶 Truth Without Hatred
🪶 Truth Without Hatred
Walking the Talking Feather Path in Painful Times
📰 Why I’m Writing This
Today two things crossed my path almost at the same time.
First, a Native-centered video talking about the destruction and suffering connected to early LDS history.
Then shortly afterward, an article appeared in the Deseret News discussing the Bear River Massacre and Native healing efforts.
Reading both back-to-back stirred something deep inside me.
Not because I hate anyone.
But because I could feel the tension between pain…
history…
institutional narratives…
and the search for truth.
And it brought back memories from my own childhood growing up near those places.
🎥 Video referenced:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZiiwUcWMhA
📰 Deseret News article:
https://www.deseret.com/environment/2026/05/18/bear-river-massacre-shoshone-tribe-idaho-utah-brad-parry-schnitzer-prize-winner/
🌄 ## Growing Up Around the Stories
As a little boy growing up near Battle Creek and the Bear River area…
these stories were always there in the background.
Not loudly.
Not openly.
But quietly there.
My dad owned a hardware and sporting goods store.
Farmers from the area would sometimes bring in old rusty guns they had dug up from the fields near those old battle sites.
Dad would trade them a few shotgun shells or a little money for them.
And as a kid…
I remember staring at those old guns and wondering:
“What really happened here?”
The land remembers things.
Even when people try not to talk about them.
🕊️ ## Something Is Happening Right Now
I think we’re living in a time where hidden things are beginning to surface.
Stories people avoided.
Pain people buried.
History people simplified.
And honestly…
I understand why Native voices are upset.
If a people feel ignored long enough…
eventually the pain comes back to the surface.
🌿 ## But Here’s The Part I Keep Wrestling With
I also know what happens when anger completely takes over.
History shows it over and over again.
Pain becomes hatred.
Hatred becomes revenge.
Revenge creates more suffering.
Then the cycle repeats itself again.
The Nemenhah teachings talk about this pattern often.
Societies built on pride, violence, control, or hidden truth eventually begin collapsing under their own weight.
But the answer was never:
“Become consumed with hatred.”
The answer was always:
“Come higher.”
🪶 ## The Warrior Path vs The Talking Feather Path
There are warrior spirits in the world.
And honestly…
sometimes warriors expose things that others are afraid to talk about.
I understand that.
But the older I get…
the more I feel drawn toward another path.
The Talking Feather path.
The path that still tells the truth…
but refuses to lose its soul in the process.
The path that mourns honestly…
without feeding endless rage.
The path that says:
“Yes, painful things happened.”
“Yes, Native people suffered.”
“Yes, truth matters.”
But also:
“If hatred fills our hearts, then the destruction keeps spreading.”
🔥 ## Truth Matters
Truth matters.
Native voices matter.
Honest history matters.
But how we carry truth matters too.
Because eventually every civilization faces the same question:
Will we heal?
Or will we simply become the next version of the thing that wounded us?
✝️ ## Where I Am Personally
The older I get…
the less interested I am in fighting online wars.
And the more interested I become in simply walking with Christ.
Christ told the truth.
But He also wept.
He warned people…
without hating them.
He mourned…
without becoming bitter.
And somehow…
He carried both truth and love at the same time.
That feels like the higher path to me now.
Not silence.
Not pretending.
Not hiding history.
But truth…
carried peacefully.
🪶 Trying to walk the Talking Feather path over here.
🌅 You may also enjoy my newer reflection:
Babylon Falls, Zion Rising
🔗 Start here:
👉 https://thetrueremnantblog.blogspot.com
(Then use the 🔍 magnifying glass at the top to search any topic.)
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I believe the answer is truth, repentance, humility, and learning to walk in peace before the Peacemaker.
For anyone interested, here is the passage that came strongly to my mind while watching this video:
AYAHTKUHYAHT NEMENHAH
The Book of the Generations of Mihnihsahoohrit
The Record of Pehnitlehnsit
Chapter 5:6–11
“6) And the Foreign Strangers shall abuse and drive the remnant of Layi from place to place, because that they shall remind them ever of that which they ought to have done in the name of the Peacemaker, but that they chose an abomination of desolation in the stead thereof.
7. For the children of Layi might have taught them to temper their lust for gain. For, we have much in our history concerning the outcome of justice in this land when the lust for gain does take control of the people and of the government.
8. But behold, they shall do unto the remnant of Layi like as they would do unto a beast of the field which is bought with gold and brought even to the slaughter… and I have seen how that the people shall suffer and perish.
9. But behold, they shall not be utterly destroyed… and He shall raise up seers who will take of these records… Then shall He teach the Foreign Strangers a mighty thing indeed.
10. And some of them shall take heed to His word and they will learn a new and better way, casting away their lust for riches and looking only to that which they need…
11. …then shall He graft them into the vine and they shall be one with Layi.”
Trying to walk the Talking Feather path over here.
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