This is a quote from The Honourable Justice Murray Sinclair,
Chair of The Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The rest of this quote was, “There are no
shortcuts.”
When seeking reconciliation and justice, mutual respect is a
must and building healthy relationships can never be circumvented. All of this takes time.
I learned at a young age that there can never be peace
without justice. My dad worked as a
United Church minister and was very involved in justice work. I grew up in Kenora, Ontario, on Lake of the
Woods; I grew up in the shadow of a residential school and hearing terrible
racist attitudes against the Anishinabe people of the NW Ontario. My father was very involved working alongside
1st Nations elders in seeking reconciliation. He also worked at having the residential
school closed.
The Presbyterian Church ran the Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential
School in Kenora; the church apologized for its actions and the abhorrent
experiments carried out there, and the land was eventually turned into a
Friendship Centre. As a child growing up
in Kenora, I was warned (not by my parents I might add) by adults not to
venture too close to the residential school because bad things might happen to
us. Sadly, still today the Kenora region
is full of racist attitudes towards 1st Nations people. There is still much reconciliation work to do,
including in our own area with the Sinixt.
Last Friday marked Remembrance Day, a day to
remember and reflect on those who’ve lost their lives dues to war. For me, Remembrance Day has also become an
invitation to reflect on the fact that peace can never be achieved without the
hard work of reconciliation and justice.
The Christian spiritual path that I walk calls us to know
our neighbours, to forge respectful relationships that are mutual and
life-giving, and to see that our neighbours are created in the image and
likeness of God. We stand together as
kin, one with all creation.
This post was published in the Nelson Star on the Tapestry page November 9th.
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