September 30, 2021
Good afternoon,
Today is the day set aside for the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation.An Indigenous leader said on CBC today that there has been 150 years of Indigenous persecution and it will take at least that long to come to reconciliation . It will take a long time to recover from our history. The trauma of residential schools is real. Racism towards First Nations people is real. Addictions in the First Nations are real.
How do we begin to heal ? The Indian Act is not a good place. Money has not solved the problems we have with each other. Listening is a good place to start , but if it takes another 150 years, that is too long. What can we do ? We are all broken.
For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good workColossians 1:9-10
The above quote comes from Paul to the new church. Wisdom and understanding is needed from each other. What can we incorporate from the wisdom in the First Nations that can move us to reconciliation ? Paul was bringing together Greek and Jewish believers. It was not easy.
Somehow we must deal with our colonial past. We were not there when the first settlers arrived. MCC had connections to a few residential schools, and were a part of that story. Maybe we could all read a book by a Indigenous author here at Poole ? What do you think we could do in a practical way in reconciliation with our past ?
Shalom and strength for our journey to reconciliation.
Fred
Soaring like Vultures lifted up by unseen Hands Trust, silent enters my fears Monica Pieper Landoni 2021