Opening Our Eyes and Ears and Hearts

Monday Night at St. John's Episcopal Church
(click above for the link to the news article)

I know we are all stressed and emotions are running high.  There is so much that has overwhelmed us from COVID-19.  Now there is the unrest in the United States.

I had thought I would talk about that but I think there is something more pressing.  Unfortunately, I will admit that I know more about what is happening in the US than I do in Canada.  That is because I can safely watch that.  I don't risk anything.  I don't have to change anything.  I don't risk losing many friends because of speaking out.

We live on Treaty Six lands.  I find it gives me a connection to my children.  Treaty Six lands include Saskatoon.  In a way, I am on the same land as my children rather than in a different province.  But that is beside the point.  

We live on Treaty Six lands.  For us, here, it does not really seem a big deal.  We don't have First Nations reserves near by.  

It is interesting how we go about our daily lives not seeing people.  When we first brought the Syrian refugee family to Wainwright the group worried about not having anyone to speak the language or from the Middle East.  Yes, we knew a couple of families but that was about it.  Imagine our surprise when we discovered how many from the Middle East there really are in Wainwright.  Something to be celebrated for diversity.

It was the same for me and our First Nations community.  If you had asked me I would have said there have to be some but I hadn't really seen any.  Just before the COVID-19 I did a memorial service for an Indigenous family here in Wainwright.  Since then, my eyes have been open and I have seen more of a presence than I did before.

It reminds me of when I was a adolescent.  My cousin from Ottawa was telling me that we had "Indian" (the term used then) blood in us.  Having studied a bit of my family background I denied that claim.  My cousin insisted.  I went to my mother and said, "Mom, Holly says we have "Indian" blood in us.  She's wrong."  My mother gently corrected me.  She told me that my uncle, Holly's father, was Metis.  I never knew until then.  My eyes were opened.  It changed nothing in some ways and changed everything in others.  I don't know how to express it without coming across as a racist.  I never loved my cousin less or thought of her in a different way, though, thank goodness.

It is through relationship that we come to know people.  It is through relationship that we will come to know "a people."  My eyes and ears and heart were further opened throughout my life by the people I met.

I remember Grade 5.  It was a split Grade5/6 class.  A young First Nations girl joined our class part way through the year.  As soon as she walked into the classroom the word went around:  "She's an Indian.  Have nothing to do with her."  My eyes and ears were open and my heart went out to her.  I didn't have a lot of social power but I did go over to her and welcome her.  Although she was never accepted, she was not shunned either.  The power of one.  But it wasn't enough.  More ones were needed.

My eyes and ears and heart were further opened by my soul sister, Lois.  A beautiful woman who is First Nations.  I am never seen a more spiritual, more giving person than my friend, Lois.  She has taught me much.  I would say what I learned here but, again, I would come across as racist.  

Guess what, twice I have said - I would come across as racist.  Guess what that means.  At heart, I am still racist.  I sit from my position of privilege and think.  But I don't live.  I don't learn.  I struggle.  I see and I hear conflicting things.  I speak against racism but, in a number of instances, I put racism into action and words - often without being conscious of it, sometimes, knowing damn well what I do.  

Here I was, ready to speak to the article above.  I was ready to denounce racism in the United States.  Granted in the particular article there was a severe abuse of religion and sacred scripture in a cause against which Jesus would have spoken passionately.  I can see him in the Temple saying - My house should be a place of prayer - you have made it into a den of thieves.  I can see him mourning over Jerusalem.  I can see him weeping for the people at the tomb of Lazarus.  How we just don't get his message of love and peace - a peace that cannot exist without justice.

I am ashamed that through the First Nations rail blockade I remained silent.  The voices against the blockade were strident.  It affected our very livelihood - or our perceived livelihood - oil.  What I am going to say is going to get me into trouble.  In Alberta, we worship oil and I am not sure why.  Yes, I know, it was a huge player in our economy.  But has it been there for us in recent years.  Oil and the systems around it have consistently let us down.  This downturn in the economy is just the most recent time Oil has failed us.  And yet we continue to turn to Oil as our saviour.  There is my heretical rant for the day.  

Oil, along with other things ingrained in our society, has blinded and deafened us to the needs of real people.  We have demonized our First Nations people over it.  The protests were the use of voices long speaking out and long unheard.  We continue to not see and hear.  We superimpose our own visions and idols over those voices.  We demean and devalue a people.  We refuse to learn about what is their cause.  I think it is because of fear.  We fear that we are wrong.  We fear that our idols will be exposed.  It is our fear that keeps us blind and deaf and heartless.  I know I fear learning because then I will feel I need to speak out and that will cause tension with many who I love and value.  I struggle with that daily.

What about the missing and murdered women, the vast majority of whom are Indigenous.  I remember a court case years ago in Saskatchewan.  An Indigenous woman in the sex trade was raped and murdered by a couple of Caucasian males.  They were given a light sentence because of who she was - both a sex trade worker and a Frist Nations woman.  Those definitions carried weight over the only definition that should count - she was a human being, a person, someone who knew the same emotions we do.  Someone who experienced joy and pain, frustration and anger, sorrow etc.  Someone who had people who loved her.  Above all, she was a person of value.

So when we speak about the injustices in the States, let us remember the injustices in Canada - those people who are nameless and those who are remembered by name - Neil Stonechild, Colton Boushee, David Milgaard, Donald Marshall ...  As we remember George Floyd and all the names in the States,  let us remember our own who have names and those who are not named in our own society.  Let us face our fears and let us learn and work together toward that vision of the Kingdom given us through our sacred scripture and spoken of by our real saviour, Jesus the Christ.

Micah 6:6-8:  "With what shall I come before the Lord,

   and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings,
   with calves a year old?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
   with tens of thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
   the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?’
He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
   and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
   and to walk humbly with your God?

Donald Trump stood in front of a church with "a bible" (not "his bible" but "a bible") in the very antithesis of the above quote.  But, to be honest, there are days when I do so as well.  And, just as I am angered by the President of the United States, I am ashamed of my own inaction and silence here in Canada.