This Sunday, Parry Stelter from Word of Hope Ministries (wordofhopeministries.ca) will be taking part in our online service. Parry will be speaking about the somewhat thorny issue of celebrating Canada Day as an Indigenous man. He has recently written articles on the issue that you can read here and here.
It may seem hard to believe that celebrating Canada Day could be a thorny issue after all, the beaver is a truly proud and noble animal, Canada is the second largest landmass, the first nation of hockey and the best part of North America but, that’s not the whole story. Parry reminds us that our history includes the sometimes accidental and sometimes deliberate introduction of European disease, it includes removal of people from their homelands, it includes residential schools and the sixties scoop. He also reminds us that the problems are not all in the past. They still exist in child welfare systems, homelessness, infant mortality, disease and mental health issues. Parry calls on us to acknowledge the past and in the power of the Spirit, to move forward together. I suspect that more than a few of us non-indigenous Canadians are willing to give a hearty amen to the second half of that sentence and perhaps less willing to voice our support for the first half but, I think they belong together. What I am saying is that there can be room in our moving forward for grief. In fact, if we are to move forward in a way that is healthy there must be room for grief.
A number of years ago one of my relatives suffered a life altering injury. Part of my response was to get on the phone and ask my brothers and sisters in the Lord to pray. Those were difficult phone calls and I occasionally had trouble getting the words out. Most people responded to my sorrow in a predictable way– they tried to cheer me up but, I didn’t want to be cheered up. In that moment, what I wanted more than anything was men and women with the courage of Job’s friends. I wanted friends who would sit with me on the ground for seven days and seven nights without speaking a word or, at least say “this sucks” and stare silent and helpless into cups of black coffee.
There is a reason we try to cheer up those who are mourning and it’s not compassion. It’s cowardice. We do not try to lift the spirits of mourners for their good but, for our own. We would rather that they be happy than that we have to sit with them for a time under that great black weight. Sometimes however, that is all there is to do. In those moments, we need the courage to mourn with those mourn, to hurt as though we ourselves have been wounded. “Ah,” you will say, “but don’t they need to move on with their lives?” Yes, they do and, I suspect they will but, you don’t get to determine the pace with which they move on or the direction they choose to go. I have walked with enough people in the midst of grief to know that there is always someone telling them their grief is taking too long or not long enough. They are too sad or not sad enough. Its so easy to coach someone in grief and so difficult to walk with them in grief.
As Parry’s article reminds us Christians are uniquely equipped to walk with those who are mourning, because we serve a man of sorrows who has carried our every wound and pain. We mourn but, we mourn with the hope that the very same thing that he is doing in us– healing our wounds, anger, resentment and unforgiveness, he is doing for others. Indeed we believe that he is doing this in all of creation. We do not celebrate the sin stained past. We grieve over it. Where those sins are ours, we repent of them and we move forward in hope and joy towards what will be. This is perhaps a uniquely Christian way of celebrating– brutally honest about our sins but, enormously hopeful for the future that God will give.