Is the Great Peacemaker at Least as Much a Prophet of the Creator as Obadiah?
12:19 PM Wednesday.
I started out by asking myself an even harder question - "Is the Great Peacemaker a prophet of the Creator equal to Moses, Jesus and Muhammad?" - but I think for this lesson it makes more sense to start with Obadiah.
Now on one level, it is surely not up to me to decide whether the Great Peacemaker is at least as much a prophet of the Creator as Obadiah (at 21 verses, the briefest of the minor prophets in the Tanakh), but rather it is up to the Haudenosaunee to determine this and let the rest of the world know where they stand on the issue.
On another level, however, I feel that I have an interfaith American diplomatic duty to study the issue, pray to the Creator for guidance, and make up my own mind.
By way of background, I've read Basic Call to Consciousness and I've listened to several hours of YouTube talks by Onondaga Faithkeeper Oren Lyons over the past 12 years. During this period, I've also had a number of mystical experiences that seem to reinforce a call for me to participate, in however small a way, in a deep and genuine movement of American truth and reconciliation. But some of these mystical experiences could well have been cannabis-exacerbated schizoaffective bipolar detachments from reality, not authentic mystical connections with a transcendental American consensus-building mission. Now that I have been on psychiatric medications for over five years, I find that my mystical experiences are much more manageable, and I am able to think them through analytically, but it is slow going and I know I am still making mistakes in my reasoning that I will need the Creator's help to set straight in due course.
At this point, I have a very strong sense that the Great Peacemaker is at least as much a prophet of the Creator as Obadiah, and I tend to think that any serious longtime mystic in the vicinity of Onondaga Lake who's answered a pilgrimage call to the Great Law of Peace Center would have to agree. (I've answered arduous pilgrimage calls to sites around the country and am happy to be called to hermitage now!) There's a powerful spiritual light that radiates from Onondaga Lake all the way to Albany - it comes from the roots of the trees themselves - and it traces back to the Great Peacemaker. I am guessing it's part of the reason why this region was called the "Burned Over District," but no American religious scholars seem to have suggested this as a possible influence yet.
I am open to the idea that what I have just described is a romantic exaggeration of the Creator's message to us here in upstate New York, in part because I am learning to accept the downsides of my neurodivergence, and in part because I am aware that it challenges orthodox Muslim, Christian, and Jewish doctrine about the sealing of prophecy.
On the other hand, I don't want to perpetuate neo-colonial ways of understanding that scholars and religious leaders agree are no longer consistent with the latest interfaith American diplomatic standard.
So, in order to answer this question more authoritatively, my next step is to get a better feel for The Great Law of Peace with the guidance of Kayanesenh Paul Williams.
Down the road, it has been suggested by a mutual acquaintance that I consider reaching out to Dr. Brandon Martin for further insight.
End 2:51 PM.
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