The figure of Francis Assisi interrogates Christian spirituality—not just in the Season of Creation, not just on October 4^th, his feast day, but every day.

What kind of Christian experience is it that is associated with a gentle relationship with a sultan? that talks to animals? that composes a Canticle that names “brother Sun,” “sister Moon,” and “sister Mother Earth”? What virtues, natural or supernatural, are present in this? Can we pin Francis down and restrict his lifeways to any culture-bound or -derived formula?

Painting Francis with Greek or Indian pigments

The question of Francis’ experience is one that has preoccupied me for countless years. Before I was Catholic, I was drawn to his life and understanding. As a Catholic, his spirituality has always intrigued me, especially as it used to be so far outside “the norm.” Figuring out what it all means has long been part of my posting process on this blog.

I’ve said before that if we adopt the classical, Greco-Roman schema of analysis of the human being—modified and amplified by Christian revelation and its exigencies as regards the limitations of any one culture’s categories of thought, to be sure—where we end up is saying that Francis of Assisi lives a life of the human and theological virtues, yes; but more than that. Like every person in a state of grace, he receives the sevenfold Gift of the Holy Spirit, which renders him docile to inspirations that are beyond human conscious control, but which are used by God to keep us safe and bring us closer to him in the conscious but God-given exercise of charity. And the particular preponderance of these seven Gifts that we find in Francis isn’t a strong showing of Fortitude or Understanding or Fear of the Lord. The biggest areas of docility and inspiration in his life are Knowledge of creatures as being both good and not-God, as being created by God, and Piety that regards God as our Father and the Father of all the other created things. Hence, “brother Sun” and “sister Moon.”

In short, the Greek frame of reference, taken up and constructed with and upon by the Latin mediaevals, suggests that the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, particularly Knowledge and Piety, issue in an ecological piety.

I still believe that. It’s been a conclusion I reached long ago, and I haven’t really found a reason to doubt it.

But Greek philosophical analysis of human beings isn’t the only place to start, is it? Other peoples and cultures have their own starting points, their own schemas, which Christianity takes up, queries, and supplements in order to express the fullness of the Gospel.

For example, think about how Francis might appear in Hindu culture. Olivier Lacombe, 20^th-century Indianist and friend of Jacques and Raïssa Maritain, points out that, in Indian thought, the traditional virtue of non-violence (ahimsa) is not conceptualized at the scale of the human being and the realization and fulfilment of its capacities. We would do better to say that

non-violence is a cosmic virtue rather than a humanist virtue. This is why non-violence does not acclimatize easily among us, because we are accustomed to taking virtues according to the measures of man, or according to the measure of God. Here, it is not a question, strictly speaking, of the measures of man, nor of the measure of God. It is a question of a spiritual experience dilated to the dimensions of the cosmos, and superabundant in generosity, in benevolence, in compassion, even if it is in the midst of non-action.[1]

So, if we started from a perspective that acknowledges something like “cosmic virtues,” not just human-scale (prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance) and God-adequating virtues (faith, hope, charity), we’d explain Francis of Assisi differently. He’s certainly non-violent. It’s true. This is not a bad starting point for understanding him. The scale of his experience is not just human, nor is it exclusively divine. There is something of “cosmic virtue” in him, and it is clear and explosive.

Now, I don’t think you could explain him entirely within a system of thought of “cosmic virtue.” But then again, I also don’t think you can explain him within Greco-Roman categories. You need to “invent” the Gifts of the Holy Spirit as the mediaevals understood them: docility to divine inspirations beyond the conscious control that Greco-Roman notions of virtue imply.

There are, then, different cultural frames for understanding Christian life experience. Each one is deficient without some modification based on the requirements of faith itself. But they could each teach us something. Francis—exemplar of the Gifts of Piety and Knowledge united with the life of the intellectual, moral, and theological virtues. Francis—exemplar of non-violence that knows the totality of the motions of the Creator who created a Humanity and assumed it without change. It’s so much better to learn to see with more than a single eye, just from our own standpoint.

So, what about starting, not in Greece or India, for I don’t live there—but a tad more locally?

Painting Francis in Nuu-chah-nulth colours

The western coast of what today is called by most Vancouver Island includes the traditional land of the Nuu-chah-nulth. It’s only marginally closer to where I live than Greece, but it’s on the same continent—so that’s a start. But I want to go there not just for the geographical proximity, but also because of intellectual accessibility.

Elder and academic Umeek (E. Richard Atleo) has written some remarkable books explaining a Nuu-chah-nulth worldview and its relevance to the current global crises.[2] These works are arguably some of the finest philosophy ever published in Canada. There is discussed in them one notion that is significant for an articulating the experience of Francis of Assisi: sacred respect, ii?aḱ (or isaak).

Sacred respect in Nuu-chah-nulth thought and lifeways

Ii?aḱ, sacred respect, is not a simple notion. At least, if we start with a European frame of mind, it’s not a simple notion. Just like the interlocutor with Hinduism needs to understand that “virtue” doesn’t always mean “virtue” in a Greco-Roman sense, so too does the person in dialogue with Indigenous cultures need to bear in mind that “respect” doesn’t just mean respect, nor does “the sacred” just mean the sacred. Although the notion is simple and basic in one framework of analysis, to render the idea intelligible in another culture, we need to slow down and parse out the meaning.

Umeek is careful to teach us that there is a polarity to sacred respect: “To practise ii?aḱ means to hold all creation in reverence so as to acknowledge, recognize, and affirm the Creator.”[3] One pole is the created order. The other pole is that which comes before it and holds it, the Creator (Ḱ^waa?uuc, a term which literally means Owner of All). There is no ii?aḱ if either pole is missing. Thus, from the start, we have complexity. The measure of this virtue is not the human being. Nor is it God. For that matter, it is not even the cosmos. We can’t reduce this scheme of analyzing the good life to Greek, mediaeval Christian, or Indian notions. Nuu-chah-nulth lenses are different again.

Another duality at play is that we might wonder if sacred respect is an intellectual or a moral disposition. Well, it turns out that it is neither exactly. In fact,

the Nuu-chah-nulth word isaak (respect) necessitates a consciousness that all creation has a common origin, and for this reason isaak is extended to all life forms. The mystery of creation has created a network of relationships characterized by isaak.[4]

Umeek points out consciousness for itself, yet there is also involved a way of treating other created beings. Creation is a web or a network, so we both see that and navigate it.

Logically, the intellectual or contemplative dimension flows from an understanding that there is one who created each and every one of us:

Since the Creator owns everything, all must be held in esteem. Thus it is said that isaak is not of human origin. Isaak in this context can be understood as a pragmatic stance in keeping with creation’s original design of wholeness.[5]

At the same time, we would go astray if we directed sacred respect and acted on it with a single polarity of the Creator:

However, the Nuu-chah-nulth culture, isaak is not understood humanistic terms and is therefore difficult to uphold and maintain on a daily basis. Isaak is not a concept of human origin but is understood in terms of creation. Isaak in practice guides one toward an understanding of creation and its meaning. It creates a climate or environment for the practitioner in which communication with other life forms is possible. It made effective communication between the Nuu-chah-nulth and animals like the salmon and wolf a reality. It is a very simple idea.[6]

Trying to disentangle this into a linear, logical succession, Umeek points us further in the direction of the inherent purpose that exists in each single thing, because every single thing was created by the Creator:

Ii?aḱ, sacred respect, is consistent with the Nuu-chah-nulth assumption that all life forms have a purpose. The existence of life forms is given by Ḱ^waa?uuc, Owner of All. Value exists by association with Ḱ^waa?uuc and, thus, all life forms have value and are to be allowed to continue to live sustainably because of this value.[7]

It is the recognition of the purpose, the activity, the life or directedness and value of things that guides decision-making and action. The Creator didn’t put this here for nothing. And the Creator is (etymologically!) the Owner of whatever we see. That requires respect. And respect flourishes in action. Thus, we develop ways of relating to the remainder of the created order that acknowledges Creator-created boundaries and perpetuates Creator-created processes and eco-systems. “Isaak,” writes Umeek, “is predicated upon the notion that every life form has intrinsic value and that this should be recognized through appropriate protocols of interaction.”[8]

Accordingly, there is little important differentiation at a conceptual level between interaction with fellow human beings and interaction with the natural world. Both are governed by sacred respect:

Consequently, friendliness was not just a kind of behaviour that someone decided was appropriate for humans; rather, it was a way of acknowledging Ḱ^waa?uuc (Owner of All – Creator). For the Nuu-chah-nulth people, polite behaviour was about more than being well brought up, well educated, or well situated in terms of social status; it was also about a way of being human. Physical growth and development was integrated with spiritual growth and development.[9]

The purpose inherent in different life forms differs, of course. But the point of sacred respect is to see all of them, each of them. With human fellows, we might be polite and non-intrusive. With species and eco-systems, we arrange relations so as to participate but not overwhelm. It all is ii?aḱ, sacred respect. Every last bit of it originates in a relationship with Ḱ^waa?uuc, Creator, Owner of All. This gentleness merged with piety, acceptance wedded to interaction, horizontality crossed with verticality, contemplation interwoven with action, created order continually calling to mind Creator—I understand that this is ii?aḱ.

Francis of Assisi visiting Nuu-chah-nulth land

Is il Poverello not rich in ii?aḱ? Does God’s fool not look a wise man all along the mountains and the sea?

I’m an outsider for sure, but I really don’t see a reason to deny it. The Nuu-chah-nulth framework is much better suited to understanding Francis than the Greek one. To interpret him starting from cardinal virtues, even supplemented with theological ones, is problematic; Christian tradition needs further dispositions to inspiration, typically called the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, working above and beyond human reason and conscious deliberation, to even begin to make sense of the shocking man of Assisi.

That’s not to say Francis is reducible to Nuu-chah-nulth terms. He can’t appropriate their life-world, nor can Christians in general. As with all human worldviews, Nuu-chah-nulth ecological-moral conceptions need changes and adjustments to become an outlook on a Christian life—in this case, a life really blossoming with understanding that the eyes of Jesus contemplated a world that his Father created and which in his Person he created too; a life given over radically in certain vows and acts of surrender that puncture the culture of reception just as much as they broke from the culture of origin; a life dedicated even to telling the created objects of sacred respect about the sacred respect that the Uncreated showed in his own death to unite it all to him.

But at the same time, the elements of Francis of Assisi that defy classification within classical European schemes seem to be spoken of quite easily in Nuu-chah-nulth terms as Umeek teaches them. And it is, perhaps, exactly because of the natural deficiencies of the European schemes that we’ve gotten ourselves into the mess we have with our common home. At the end of this Season of Creation and beyond, it wouldn’t hurt for us to adopt a posture of humility, develop a little epistemological hybridism, and listen and learn from people who have gotten at least this much right in their analysis of the world.

[1] Olivier Lacombe, L’Élan spirituel de l’hindouisme (Paris: O.E.I.L, 1986), 21.

[2] Umeek (E. Richard Atleo), Tsawalk: A Nuu-chah-nulth Worldview (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2004); Principles of Tsawalk: An Indigenous Approach to Global Crisis (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2011).

[3] Principles of Tsawalk, 159.

[4] Tsawalk, 15–16.

[5] Ibid., 16.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Principles of Tsawalk, 117.

[8] Tsawalk, 130.

[9] Principles of Tsawalk, 72.