Healing Old Wounds

On September 30, 2021, Canada held our first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation – a day for all Canadians to remember the tragic legacy of our residential schools. As some of you may know, I spent time working as a student missionary for the Presbyterian Church in Canada at Whitefish Bay — a first nation's community south of Kenora. That was fifty years ago this summer. I would have to say that summer was not a good experience, nor was it a bad experience. I had no idea what I was doing, or what I was supposed to be doing, and I'm absolutely sure I was of no help to the people there. And to be honest, I came away from that summer with a not so great opinion of the indigenous people I encountered at Whitefish Bay.

I remember visiting a home on the reserve a few days after I arrived. They left the TV on ... and we watched TV together — that was the visit ...

I remember one man apologizing for the fact that the local people had used the Presbyterian Church built on the reserve in the 1950's for firewood over the years ...

I remember Howard who came to live with us. He was about my own age – 20 years old - and he had finished high school and he was trying to accomplish something with his life, but his family had very serious drinking problems and, overwhelmed, Howard almost died by suicide - putting a shotgun to his stomach and pulling the trigger ...

I remember walking through a field on the reserve at midnight and encountering a woman with two small children. She was leaving her husband because of physical abuse. She was dragging a stove through the field because this was her most valuable possession and she wasn't going to leave the stove with him. So I helped drag the stove through that field to her friend's place ... her friend was not happy to see her, but eventually agreed to take her, and her stove … to take them in …

I remember late one night being threatened by young people hyped up from sniffing gasoline ...

Now, I need to tell you, these experiences were just not a part of my white, suburban middle class upbringing. We did not have any physical abuse in my family. My dad had one bottle of beer annually with a neighbour on Christmas Day. All through my teenage years I had a curfew and my parents made sure I stuck to it … or there would be consequences. We were indoctrinated with the Protestant work ethic.

We were taught to work hard, to be self-reliant, to stay away from drugs, and encouraged and supported to get good grades at school. We grew up attending the local Presbyterian Church every Sunday, and memorizing Bible verses each week, and behaving properly in Sunday School class. Everyone knew everyone else and their kids, and in my neighbourhood — we were supervised not just by my parents but by the whole community.

Now, I was not a perfect child, and I got into my share of trouble, but I learned about family and community and about self-reliance. I developed an identity that reflected the ambitions and expectations of that type of upbringing; and the skills and values and faith I learned as a child have served me very well in life, and almost without exception, it worked for all my other young friends who grew up with me in that western Toronto suburb of Etobicoke.

So, I had no idea why the people on that reserve at Whitefish Bay did not know what I knew, why they did not live as I lived, and to be honest … I blamed them for it.

So, as I said, it was not a good experience … or a bad experience, but I certainly felt like a fish out of water, and I couldn't help feeling these first nation's people of ours needed to get a grip on life and begin to make something of themselves.

For most of the past fifty years, since that summer of 1976, although I didn't voice my opinion out loud, or speak out concerning my thoughts, I have harboured a certain prejudice against indigenous people, feeling there was something wrong with them ... wondering why they couldn't get their act together.

Over the past twenty years, I began to hear something about Residential Schools. I didn't know very much about it, and I didn't particularly try to learn more about it. I heard that we had issued an apology for the part we played in this as Presbyterians, but I never heard or read the apology. And certainly, in 1976, when I was working at Whitefish Bay, I had never even heard of such a thing as a "residential school."

It didn't really make a difference to me ... not until a few years ago …

Now, what I have learned, heard and seen, makes all the difference in the world to me ... now I think I'm beginning to understand what I experienced all those years ago ... now it begins to make sense ...

In the fall of 2007, I became a member of the Assembly Council. This is a council of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, and it meets between our annual national meeting to make decisions for the church and plan for the future.

At one of the first meetings I attended, I met Lori Ransom, who, at that time, was our church's spokesperson on indigenous issues and a native Canadian herself. She explained to us the painful legacy of residential schools, and she brought with her a newly made film centering on the experience of three young people who had attended a residential school.

I watched that film, and I was deeply moved. I began to realize everything … everything that had shaped me as a human being — my family, my community and cultural values, my religion — all of that had been taken away from the children who were placed in residential schools.

They were taken away from their families as early as three or four years old. They were punished for speaking their own language and forced to learn English. They were told their religion was not a true religion, and they were supposedly made over into good little Christians. All of them were deprived of their culture and their identity, some of them were physically and sexually abused. They couldn't even communicate with their families who were often hundreds of miles away, in places where telephones were not available. They were alone and frightened and lost. And when they finally returned home, they did not know who they were anymore and some of them could no longer speak with their own grandparents and the elders of the community because these children no longer remembered the only language the older members of their communities could speak. They no longer fit in with their own people, and they were not accepted into our white communities, because beyond the borders of the reserve they experienced racism and prejudice.

Then in June of 2008, at General Assembly, our national church meeting in Ottawa, I listened silently, with a huge lump in my throat, as a seventy year old man, Ted Quezonce, shared with us his experience of being taken away from his family at the age of four years old and subjected to years of violence, sexual abuse and shame. Though his experience was over sixty years ago, this man cried as he told us his story.

After he spoke, the Assembly gave him a standing ovation. I couldn't help feeling it would have been much more appropriate for us to have simply stood silently for several minutes in reflection and prayer instead of clapping. I suddenly understood why the First Nation's community at Whitefish Bay was so troubled.

Now, I know, that the government, and the churches who collaborated with the government, felt they were doing the right thing. I know many of the teachers at those residential schools never perpetrated the horrible crimes of physical and sexual abuse we hear about so often. I know many of them felt they were doing the Lord's work.

And so, all of this stands as a reminder to us, "Be very careful when, in the name of God, you decide to force your help on people who have not asked for it, and do not want it."

"Be very careful, when in the name of Christ, you definitely decide for other people what is right and true and Christian." For it is in those very moments we are most in danger of doing something which will be hurtful and damaging, and exactly the opposite of what Jesus would have us offer to the world ... in his name.

Now, I do not use this term lightly or often, but it is called for in this moment: We, the church, have sinned —we have sinned against our first nation's people, and we have sinned against the message of the God whom we profess to honour, and we have sinned against the Son of Man who walked humbly and compassionately to give life and freedom and hope to all the people who populate this planet – of whatever race, of whatever culture, and even of whatever religion.

At the very beginning of his ministry Jesus spoke the following words in the synagogue in Nazareth. These words are a proclamation concerning what his ministry would be all about.

Jesus said, "The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord."

I pray as a person who was blind, "God, give me back my sight, so that I may see and live the truth of your message."

I pray that for us all ...

And for Canada's indigenous people, I pray that as those who are poor, they might hear good news, I pray that as captives, they may be released, and I pray that as those who have been oppressed they may be liberated. Then and only then, may we, with Jesus, "proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord."

I believe the healing may have begun. I have begun to find healing for my prejudice.

An indigenous person I know — a Christian, and a priest in the Anglican Church, Samantha Caravan, has begun to find healing for the wounds of her people. Here is what she wrote on the day the government of Canada apologized to our First Nation's people. She has given me permission to share this with you ...

"I watched with great interest the apology offered by our government to the indigenous peoples of Canada … I listened and watched.

There were a couple of glorious moments. I was filled with hope when the first order of business was a motion to allow the Indigenous elders present, to offer their responses from the floor of the House of Commons.

I was moved when Stephan Dion admitted his party's complicity for all of these years in upholding the Indian Act.

I was ecstatic when I heard Jack Layton name what has happened to Canada's Indigenous peoples … as racism.

But, all the words paled in comparison to the profound sacred moment I was witnessing - indeed millions were witnessing. There set in the middle of the floor of the House of Commons were 11 chairs - positioned in a circle - seated on those chairs — 11 Canadian Indigenous Elders - who for the very first time in their life, and for the very first time since the Indian Act was legislated in 1876, had a voice of their own, on their own terms - from their sacred circle.

When Chief Phil Fontaine rose to his feet to address parliament he was greeted by the thunderous applause of a standing ovation, and then he spoke these words: "For our parents, our grandparents, our great grandparents, indeed for all the generations which have proceeded us - this day represents nothing less than the achievement of the impossible."

Speaking from the depths of her heritage as an indigenous person, and from her faith in Christ, Samantha writes, "At that very moment I glimpsed "the new heaven and new earth" that John tells us about in Scripture — I witnessed the birth of a new hope and a new way of being in relationship.

Then when Mary Simon the Inuit elder, and former Governor General, stood and spoke first in her native Inuktituke — I was breathless, and what I heard in my heart were more of John's words from the Book of Revelation;

"And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

'See, the home of God is among mortals.

God will dwell with them;

they will be God's peoples,

and God will be with them;

God will wipe every tear from their eyes.

Death will be no more;

mourning and crying and pain will be no more,

for the former things have passed away."

Samantha wrote, "What I witnessed on June 11th, 2008, in our House of Commons was a sacred moment, a moment when I think our Canadian human family was at its best, not perfect but honest - struggling desperately to understand each other, struggling desperately to reach out to each other … to heal."

"I saw the beginnings of the deconstruction of prejudice, not only for Indigenous peoples, but for all people who adopt Canada as home. I saw the seven sacred teachings of my people, being honoured. I saw … Respect ... Love ... Honesty ... Courage ...Humility ...Wisdom ...Truth ...

Samantha ended, "I wish my father could have witnessed it. My father died needing to hear that apology … I wish he had … I wish he had …”