O’ GREAT SPIRIT, ‘Whose voice I hear in the winds, And whose breath gives life to all the world, hear me I am small and weak, I need your strength and wisdom.
LET ME WALK IN BEAUTY, and make my eyes ever behold the red and purple sunset.
MAKE MY HANDS respect the things you have made and my ears sharp to hear your voice.
MAKE ME WISE so that I may understand the things you have taught my people.
LET ME LEARN the lessons you have hidden in every leaf and rock.
I SEEK STRENGTH, not to be greater than my brother, but to fight my greatest enemy — myself.
MAKE ME ALWAYS READY to come to you with dean hands and straight eyes.
So WHEN LIFE FADES, as the fading sunset, my spirit may come to you without shame.
The Great Father above a Shepherd Chief is. I am His and with Him I want not. He throws out to me a rope and the name of the rope is love and He draws me to where the grass is green and the water not dangerous, and I eat and lie down and am satisfied. Sometimes my heart is very weak and falls down but He lifts me up again and draws me into a good road. His name is Wonderful.
Sometime, it may be very soon, it may be a long, long time, He will draw me into a valley. It is dark there, but ‘ll be afraid not, for it is in between those mountains that the Shepherd Chief will meet me and the hunger that I have in my heart all through this life will be satisfied.
Sometimes He makes the love rope into a whip, but after-wards He gives me a staff to lean upon. He spreads a table before me with all kinds of foods. He puts His hand upon my head and all the “tired” is gone. MY cup He fills till it runs over. What I tell is true. I lie not. These roads that are “away ahead” will stay with me through this life and after; and afterwards I will go to live in the Big Tepee and sit down with the Shepherd Chief forever.
