TLU Celebrates Native American Heritage Month

November is National Native American Heritage Month, and Texas Lutheran University invites the community to join the celebration. Throughout the month, TLU will offer events to foster learning and appreciation of the histories, contributions, languages, traditions, and cultures of Native American communities.

Several morning chapel services throughout the month feature special guest speakers. Rev. Keats Miles-Wallace (Coahuiltecan), who spoke at morning chapel on November 1, is a descendent of a border band of the Coahuiltecan peoples, a 2014 TLU alum, and pastor of Technicolor Ministries, a ministry of support for the LGBTQIA2S+ community and those who love them. Upcoming chapel speakers include Vance Blackfox on November 13, and Mark Keddal on November 25.

Blackfox (Cherokee) is a 1999 TLU aum and founder and director of Other+Wise, a multi-site cultural education and cultural immersion program for youth and student groups from across the country. He presently serves as the Director of Indigenous Ministries and Tribal Relations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, is the creator and producer of the Vine Deloria, Jr. Theological Symposium at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, and serves on the board of directors for the Charter for Compassion.

Keddal, a member of St. Andrews Episcopal Church in Seguin, will speak on the church's collaboration with the Diné and their grounding as indigenous Episcopalians in both traditions-a commitment to the cross-fertilizing possible because of a deeply held belief in the sacred.

Morning chapel services, which are open to all, are held in the Chapel of the Abiding Presence at 10 a.m.

On November 12, Blackfox will lead The Blanket Exercise at 4 p.m. in the Chapel of the Abiding Presence. The exercise is interactive and requires participants, as they are able, to stand and move throughout the first hour of the experience. The second hour allows for participants to process the experience and share what they may have learned and what they will take away. The Blanket Exercise, first created in Canada, can be deeply engaging both intellectually and emotionally. Due to the honest nature of the information included in the narration of the exercise, all participants are expected to be 15 years of age or older and punctuality is critical.

On November 21 at 4 p.m. in Tschoepe Hall's Dunne Conference Center, Maria Rocha will present

Coahuiltecan Spirituality: Humanity's Creation at the Sacred Springs in San Marcos. Rocha, a member of the Miakan-Garza tribe, offers a rare insight into the spiritual belief system of an Indigenous community. Through the creation story of her people, listeners will journey with her to a 4,000-year-old rock shelter painting at the Texas border; learn about the origins of an ancient medicine ceremony still practiced today; and travel to the Coahuiltecan homeland in San Marcos, Texas, where humanity first emerged onto Mother Earth.

Texas Lutheran University is one of 26 colleges and universities associated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). In August 2016 at the Churchwide Assembly, members of the ELCA adopted the Repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery. In September 2021 the ELCA Church Council adopted "A Declaration of the ELCA to the American Indian and Alaska Native People." The ELCA is currently involved in a Truth and Healing Movement. You are invited to learn more about and get involved with this important work at https://www.elca.org/indigenous.

Details of on-campus events in connection with Native American Heritage Month can be found at Native American Heritage Month 2024.