Kaitlin Curtice is a Native American Christian writer, speaker and worship leader. She is an author with Paraclete Press and writes at www.kaitlincurtice.com. Kaitlin's first book, Glory Happening, releases on November 7th.
You’re a member of the Citizen Potawatomi
Nation. Can you describe how this heritage influences your faith? Your writing?
About three years
ago I had an experience in which God opened my eyes to the reality that I
hadn’t learned a lot about my Native heritage, and I realized how much more I
want to know both for myself and for my children. From that moment, it has
deeply influenced my faith in every way, but especially the way I view American
Christianity. It has brought me into new aspects of my own faith that I didn’t
know existed.
Is there one common misconception, myth or stereotype about native peoples in North America that you’d like to address?
The lazy, poor
Indian or the “savage” are some of the stereotypes that I’d like to see
disappear. There are still so many misconceptions about how people carry so
much generational grief, and it makes situations worse when people put judgment
onto Native people because of that grief and the way it has affected our lives
for generations. I think there is a lot that needs to be taught about the
beauty of Native culture, within every tribe. Teaching more about the cultures
of the people would help with some of these misjudgments, I think.
Could you tell us about your own faith
journey? Have you always been a Christian?
I grew up in the
Southern Baptist Church. I’m really thankful for my childhood faith and the way
it led me to where I am today. I’ve deconstructed a lot of that faith, and
obviously, the combination of that faith with my Native American faith is
something unique. I’m really grateful for it. I’m not a Baptist anymore, but
I’m okay with not being labeled with any denomination.
I absolutely wrote
it in the spirit of journal or diary entries. I started thinking more about
being present, because I was experiencing these really beautiful moments
throughout my day, and I was also experiencing beauty through my past
experiences in ways I hadn’t before. And along with these stories, I wrote
prayers as I was processing them, that often feel like poems as well. This book
wasn’t difficult to write. It was like catharsis for me, a beautiful release of
a lot of things I’d been holding inside of myself for a long time.
In one of the chapters of GLORY HAPPENING
you write about being invited to a gathering of friends of a couple that you
and your husband Travis had recently met. You describe what it was like to be
under a “covering of hospitality.” A week after this gathering you found out
you were pregnant. You and Travis were hit with the realization that “these
people will be our people.” Can you talk about the importance of friendship?
Especially in a Christian context?
My husband and I
believe that in community, friends become family. We live far away from both of
our families, and it’s been blessing after blessing to find people who connect
to us, who claim us and do daily life with us. And in the context of the
church, being with people who follow Jesus and try (and fail together) daily to
love one another—there is nothing like it, and it has taught us so much about
ourselves, about the glory of God in
the most unexpected places.
You quote Barbara Brown Taylor, “At the
very least most of us need someone to tell our stories to. At a deeper level,
most of us need someone to help us forget ourselves…” Can you expand on that
thought?
I think when we
release the stories of our lives to one another, we first learn how to claim
them for ourselves, but then we realize that our story actually belongs to
the lives of others as well. This helps us let go of ourselves—of our egos, of
our pretense. It’s in those “me, too” moments we both find and forget ourselves
in community with others.
You describe a time when, in the middle of
a busy day with your sons asleep, you seek God. You whisper to God: “I trust
you. But, help me trust you.” Not unlike the person in the Bible who came to
Jesus, asking him to heal his son. Jesus tells him, “All things are possible
for those who believe.” And the man replies, “I do believe. Help me overcome my
unbelief!” (Then Jesus heals his son). You called your own encounter with God,
“a few moments of fuel. A tiny sliver of kingdom-to-person contact.” Can you
elaborate on this experience, and why it was so important to you?
That quote from
the Bible is one of my favorites, because I’ve asked so often to overcome my
unbelief. This story was just one of those moments that really stood out to me,
and still does. It was quiet and dark and I was truly alone with God, even for
just a few short minutes. When we are stripped of everything and in a sense,
naked before God, there is no need to run or be distracted. It was one of those
moments that revived me for the rest of the day, and I believe all of us need
those moments, especially in a world that feels so heavy and chaotic.
I honestly feel
that my sons have taught me more about God than I’ve taught them. It seems we
do this dance together, back and forth, one after the other, exchanging our
ideas of who we think God might be to us. As a parent, I get to tell my sons
what my ideas of God are, but then I get to watch the way they live their lives
and learn from those moments, too.
A few paragraphs after this interaction
with Eliot, you write, “We are shaped by our daily habits, by the way we pray
in the light and in the dark, by the way we speak and the way we trust.” Can
you elaborate on the importance of trust and its link with intimacy?
I think trust and
intimacy increase together. It goes back to those moments of being unashamed,
of being raw with God. It leads us to be raw with others, to walk and live
without pretense, to fight against our ego that so often keeps us from being
connected to others. As we slowly break away from that, our trust, our ability
to be intimate and connected to others increases. That’s the power of
storytelling and the power of stillness.
On a purely practical level, can you share
your routine for writing? Do you have one? Is there a place and/or time of day
that works best for you?
I like to write
most in the mornings, but often, it comes out of this sort of need for
catharsis. I write to process life, to process grief, to process, well,
everything! I try to blog consistently on my Patheos and personal blog, and I
write fairly consistently for Sojourners. Often these pieces come out of church
experiences or other things I’m reading that are helping me digest my own
journey as a Native American.
Is there anything else you’d like to
mention?
I’m currently
working on a second book that will be a lot more about my personal journey as a
Native American Christian. I’m really excited to continue working on this so
that I can get it out into the world.
I’m also one of
the main speakers of the Why Christian? Conference in 2018 with Rachel Held Evans
and Nadia Bolz-Weber, so please check out this conference and consider coming! (It's taking place March 16-17 in Durham, N.C.)
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Kaitlin's book, Glory Happening, releases on November 7th.
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