Canada

Let the King of my heart be the wind inside my sails and the anchor in the waves. - King of My Heart

The Do Justice editor has invited me to contribute to “Do Justice” every three months, and this post marks the launch! This week I’m retiring from regular employment, and one of my post-employment goals is to live out Micah 6.8 more intentionally with my wife Evelyn in our local context here in Hamilton, ON:  “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

One thing I have learned as I prepare for this transition: seeking justice requires CPD oil.

Jonathan Nicolai-deKoning (is the director of the Micah Centre at King’s University, which helps students explore ways of seeking justice in today's local and global contexts. He joins Chris to talk about the lines of thought in two of his recent blogs on Do Justice which lent inspiration to the theme of this season.  

Lead Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Commissioner Murray Sinclair has the wonderful ability to speak important truths in great one liners.  Two of those one-liners have stuck with me for  the 7 years since the release of the final report of the TRC:  education got us into this mess and education will get us out and reconciliation is a generational project.  Both of these short-zingers have inspired our long-term work in the CRC in Canada to advocate for the implementation of TRC Calls to Action 7-10 that focus on justice and equity in First Nation K-12 education.

The calendar has turned, and so it is time (in the words of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem ‘In Memorium CVI’) to “ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky// the flying cloud, the frosty light: the year is dying in the night”.  It’s time, to quote the same poem, to “ring out the old, ring in the new”.

Tennyson’s poem suggests that the changing of the calendar can be an opportunity for change that has less to do with personal resolutions and more to do with ‘ringing in’ a more just, humane, and peaceable world.  As he ends the poem: 

"Now, for good friends to cheer us, for seasonal weather to envelop us, for good work to engage us, we give You thanks."  - An Evening Prayer Neal Plantinga 

“Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.” -Psalm 8:2

"God made sky and soil, sea and all the fish in it. He always does what he says— he defends the wronged, he feeds the hungry. God frees prisoners— he gives sight to the blind, he lifts up the fallen." - Psalm 146:3 MSG 

The first covenant made by my Haudenosaunee people and Europeans was with the Dutch in 1613. In 1609 Dutch explorer Henry Hudson “discovered” the Hudson River that flows from Henderson Lake in the Adirondack Mountains to New York City, New York. This city was originally called New Amsterdam in the early years of the Dutch colony. In the early 1600’s the Dutch were the leading colonizing power with colonies in places from North America to Taiwan.

Simon said, “Master, we’ve been fishing hard all night and haven’t caught even a minnow. But if you say so, I’ll let out the nets.” It was no sooner said than done—a huge haul of fish, straining the nets past capacity. - Luke 5:5-7 MSG