So, protesters, many of whom were Indigenous, broke into the UN COP30 event Tuesday evening.

A comment from Isaiah Brokenleg, (Shaneequa) Staff Officer for Racial Reconciliation at Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America

Another important voice from COP30

At that same moment, I was across town at the Tapiri Indigenous Voices gathering at the Anglican Cathedral. Inside, we prayed, sang, and shared stories of our connection to the land, stories of love, ceremony, survival, and deep grief for what is being lost. Outside, others, just as passionate, just as desperate, were demanding to be heard.

I know some will say that protesting isn’t the way to do things. But I wonder what would any of us do if our homelands were disappearing, our sacred sites desecrated, our food and medicine threatened, and our children’s future was being destroyed?

When your voice is ignored and your people are not heard in the very spaces where decisions about your survival are being made, sometimes lament becomes action. Sometimes prayer looks like protest.

This isn’t about chaos, it’s about survival. It’s about love for the land, for the water, and for the generations to come. When the world doesn’t listen, the earth and her children must find new ways to speak.

As a winkté, a Two-Spirit Indigenous faith leader here at COP30, I am holding all of this in prayer; the pain, the courage, and the hope. May we learn to listen before the cries of the people and the planet become too loud to ignore, or even worse, fall silent because they are no longer alive to shout. Lord, in your mercy….

Mitakuye Oyasin (we are all related)

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