Navajo Cookies

Two days ago, I had a spiritual experience through a sandwich cookie.

We spent the day in Navajoland with Leland Silversmith, a jewelry maker and storyteller who lives with his family on their farmland, raising sheep. When we arrived we sat in the family’s Hogan (which is now a church, as his father is a Christian minister) and heard the story of his family and the hard times of the Navajo. His mother prepared Navajo tacos for us for lunch, and opened their home to twelve strangers.

After lunch we traveled through the beautiful lands of Eastern Arizona to Window Rock, to see the eponymous stone formation, tour the Navajo Nation’s capital building, and meet the editor of the Navajo Times for a tour of their facilities.

Everywhere we went we were greeted eagerly with stories of strength, tragedy, survival and pride in one’s heritage, and it really inspired many of my classmates. We each found something beautiful in Navajoland, be it the people’s stories, the way a niece my age respected and cared for her elders, the way their raspberry jam reminded many of us of our own grandmas’ jam recipes, or just the sheer power of the mountains surrounding their home.

We explored those mountains when Lee took us out to find some of the sheep who had separated from the flock. (While we didn’t find the sheep, they were found safe and sound in the front yard of the Silversmith’s home while we were in the mountains hunting for them. Sheep-herding may be a skill, but long-distance sheep-herding…that’s a talent).

We filled the day with history, beauty, and community, but the best part of the day for me was when we returned to the house after sheep-herding, fully intending to leave for Gallup, to get out of the Silversmiths way before we became a burden, only to find them setting up tables and cooking for us again.

They shared their food, their home, their history, and their lives with us, sitting around a folding table eating hamburgers and tossed salad, watching the sunset behind their mountains, and I couldn’t help but be humbled by it all.

A few of my classmates will talk about the history of the Navajo, the atrocities that take place at the hands of European settlers and eventually the U.S. Government, and the continued struggles they have, even just to protect their lands from “imminent domain”. It is a story that needs to be told, understood, and changed.

But I have to admit, the story didn’t strike me as deeply as watching an eighty-three year old woman put chocolate and vanilla sandwich cookies into a bowl and ask me to take them out to share with the group, along with a stack of paper cups and a half gallon of milk. A simple dessert for a simple meal, but it was shared with such heartfelt hospitality and blessing…I swear it was the best sandwich cookie I’ve ever tasted.

They shared a few more stories and gave us their blessings. We swapped hats, t-shirts, e-mail addresses, and prayers. They made us each write down our street addresses with promises of Christmas cards and periodic updates. In less than a day, our little group had bonded with theirs to become a family, united by a shared experience and the peace found in community.
We drove away from their home as the sky was starting to grow darker, and I couldn’t help but reflect on the communities we’ve seen, and the communities I’m a part of. In nearly every city we’ve visited thus far, we’ve encountered communities who have all opened their arms to us and given us more than we expected. As Ken during in the drive back, “No matter what happens on this trip, if I don’t come back a better person, I’ve done something wrong”.

I hope I come back a better person. I hope I remember the beauty of companionship and generosity, even in something as simple as a sandwich cookie.