Indigenous Justice

I have a prayer.  

The most intense week of my life started when I entered a classroom for a one week course. The course was named “Exploring Indigenous Justice and Healing”, taught by Rupert Ross and offered through the Canadian School of Peacebuilding. I had read his book “Returning to the Teachings” a few years before and it had stuck with me. I was excited to hear more as I am in the field of reconciliation and justice.

There is a 36% chance that Aboriginal students in Canada will graduate high school, compared to 72% for non-Aboriginal students.

Overlooking the beauty that is Badlands National Park this summer, I remember feeling at peace. Our group of 50 spread across the breathtaking landscape and took about 15 minutes to just sit in silence, take in the sights, and reflect on our expectations for the week ahead.

Yet this time of reflection and awe came at a price—a price that I was not aware of until later that evening.

That night, our group listened as a Lakota Native American shared his people’s troubling story.

Children are the centre of our communities; it is of utmost importance that we create a better world for them to live. We must build and yes, sometimes fight, for their opportunity to thrive rather than be the statistics that show otherwise. We have to create opportunity in which equality is no longer questioned.

What Thanksgiving story do you know? As our American sisters and brothers celebrate Thanksgiving we listen to a sister's retelling of "the first Thanksgiving". 

What does hair have to do with anything? For Navajo people, it can mean a lot. “I have often heard that, for Navajo people, hair is our memory.” Many families still have to make the decision to keep their hair, and the memories and identity tied to it, or sacrifice it for more societal mobility.

I’m no art critic, much less a patron of the arts, but on the principle that even a blind squirrel finds an occasional nut, I managed to stumble across Jungen’s striking work.

These are the kinds of conversations Aboriginal women are having. It is not normal and shouldn’t be routine. It is scary but necessary. Do other women have to have these conversations?

Two years ago marked the first time I heard the acronym "CAMC." After responding to a posting for the need for camp counsellors to go to a First Nations reserve in Northern Ontario on the ServiceLink website, I became instantly connected to some amazing CRC staff that were passionate about social justice and had their sights set on developing and growing reconciled relationships with their Indigenous neighbours.

My colleague Shannon Jammal-Hollemans recently made a powerful statement, saying Christians tend to focus on the Fall at the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil, rather than focusing on the Tree of Life. I believe this cuts to the core of the “burden” of injustice, shedding light on the frustrating, paradoxical occurrence of disempowered Jesus followers.