Indigenous Justice

My kindergartener came home excited this weekend -- he’d gotten a free book, one that he could keep! He wanted to read it right away.

As soon as I saw the book, I tried to deflect. “Maybe later, honey.” Nope! Now!

“Wouldn’t you like to find a different book? There a whole bunch of new ones from the library on the table.” Nope! This one! The Indian one.

It’s Thanksgiving season in the United States -- when many of our kids will come home with construction paper head-dresses and mythology about a peaceful dinner between "Pilgrims and Indians."

What this pro-life series has taught me is that the CRCNA is deeply, unapologetically pro-life. 

“Sometimes Native people want to be white. Tell them that they’re made in God’s image.” That’s what an Indigenous elder told a friend of mine when she asked what she should tell Church people about Indigenous peoples. Violet, an elder among the Carrier people of northern British Columbia, is naming and challenging the internalized racism faced by Indigenous peoples across North America today. When the image of God is diminished in one it is diminished in all of us – and life and shalom are affected.

To me, being pro-life means lamenting the disproportionate number of Indigenous women who are missing and murdered. 

As a Canadian living in Latin America, I would like Canada to be more known in the region for its donuts than for harmful foreign policy. Now is a good time to ask for change that upholds the right to a dignified life for all. 

I have participated in the Blanket Exercise several times and each time I have heard people, of all backgrounds, say “I never knew. Nobody ever told me this.” How we tell the story matters and the Blanket Exercise gives us the opportunity to learn a more complete story.

Could the long, slow work of voting and political action be thought of as a spiritual discipline?

Injustices are prevalent first in what or who is NOT being included in the content and second in HOW marginalized groups are presented.

A Muslim man from Iran, a few students from the CRC campus ministry Geneva House, several First Nations or Metis people, and a couple dozen other members of churches from across Kingston gathered at Westside Fellowship CRC in Kingston.

My cousin phoned me out of the blue. I haven’t heard from him for awhile. Usually that is the case. I only hear from him when he is in dire straits and this wasn’t the exception. He asked if he could spend the night at my place before heading off to his moms for awhile. I said yes. I have the room and space.