2 Corinthians 5: 17-21 spells out why it is important for Christians to embrace a ministry of reconciliation, making wrongs right and bridging divides. Here are some recommendations for how to engage in Truth & Reconciliation with Canada’s Indigenous and First Nations:
- Schedule some time for learning and quiet reflection
- Join the Honour song https://vimeo.com/606862147
- Wear orange or display orange in your windows
- Listen to a residential school survivor’s experience.
- Reach out to an Indigenous friend or neighbour. Offer them a meal. Ask how they are doing.
- Reflect on this prayer by Campbell Page and let it inspire your own prayers of repentance, solidarity and commitment to be an agent of hope and healing.
A prayer offered by Campbell Page:
To honour the known and unknown Indigenous children who died in the former residential schools and for all the Survivors of trauma inflicted by colonizers of Canada. The names shared here are my own Mushkegowuk Cree family names on my mother’s side, whose names I have found among those deaths identified at Northern Ontario residential schools.
A Lament for the Known but Unnamed
Words,
Fail me right now, Father.
I feel more like groaning, yelling, screaming with the echoes of David,
How long, O Lord, How long?
I should be shocked,
But I am numb,
It’s not new, we, your First Peoples here on Turtle Island
Have known.
We’ve spoken, with no one willing to listen,
If I cried Alissapi, Mark, Sailor, Sutherland, Gibson, who but the wind seems to hear?
Siblings, cousins, aunties, uncles, kokum’s and mosoms, parents,
Children
Torn from their families, their culture,
Their language, their Creator
Broken, beaten, abused, buried where no one knew.
Now,
Brought to the light. Mother Earth sharing her truth.
Wounds reopened. Atrocities revealed. News cycles, story of the moment.
Numbers.
Their names taken when they walked into that school.
Their names still, stolen, when taken out.
They called me number 1, or 2, or 3 . . .
Now they call me that again.
No longer disappeared, but still unnamed.
Lord, we want so desperately to return them their names but are left with
1, 2, 3 . . .
Speak their names for us, for them, for their families.
Remember their names for us, speak them to the wind, perhaps . . .
Perhaps we might hear.
Who were they?
Who did you intend for them to be as they followed their Creator?
Where were you then?
Where are you now?
We need you Father.
There are more children to come. It will get worse.
Give strength to those who grieve. Peace to those who wondered where their child lay. Knowing she was gone, he was passed, but nowhere to visit, to talk, to be with, to say goodbye.
Hope to us all.
Please open the hearts of our Canadian friends from the four directions.
Open our eyes to see the pain, the loss, the truth that we are not who we think we are.
Unstop our ears that we might listen for our shared humanity.
Seal our lips, that the listening might be uninterrupted by a need to deny, discount, or rewrite history . . .
again.
Jesus, burden our hearts with a ministry of reconciliation
Canada needs healing.
There is a pain and sorrow within the hearts of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation and all the Indigenous Peoples of Turtle Island today.
Pour out your presence, your peace, your strength, your love, that Creator might hold them, us, in the palm of His hand.
Heal them, heal us, heal this land.
Amen
Campbell Page is Red River Métis, Saulteaux, Mushkegowuk Cree and serves as Indigenous Relations Director for the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Canada
