CONFUSING TIMES ARE VERY HARD TIMES

 

I hate  driving in the fog, whether daytime or at nighttime. I am afraid that someone may come crashing in from my rear or not recognize my headlights in the front. I am confused. And I feal very fearful. 

 

We are living in a time when there are no signposts of truth. The culture is very polarized and very shrill about their positions. What should hold us together with clear values are almost non-existent. You may try to teach your children one value only to have it trashed by the very next TV program they are watching. We live in a post-truth world. It does not matter what the truth is. This is all about winning. It is power that counts! And that is all!

 

You teach your children that life is sacred. You must not kill – even your own self. Next month the family is greeted with news that your great aunt has just had herself put down with medically assisted death. What do you teach your children as the truth? What values can they stake their lives on?

 

Human beings need to have some clear and definite values. We find it very difficult to live when the value ground is shifting every year. The values that are true and give for us to follow are like the runway lights on a runway at night. I remember the northern pilots telling stories about how much they appreciated the runway lights when they came in from the North on an ambulance call to bring a patient to the University hospital in Saskatoon. So often as they would recount these night trips you could feel that they wanted to get out and hug each one of those night lights. Each light told them exactly where and how they could accomplish their flight mission.

 

As the culture is shifting more and more to a very individualistic position there is greater distrust of any type of institution or organized set of values and directions. It is all about how I, the individual, is going to do things. No one is going to impose some other truth on me!

 

In all societies, religion has been the force that defined peoples’ lives and had signposts that were clearly right or wrong. Religion gave your value to your own individual existence and your place on this earth.

 

Religion has been regulated to the margins. It is strictly and individual’s choice. You have your religious values and I have mine!

 

It is in this confusing fog that we live. What does it mean for our Christianity?

 

This is a time to rediscover the great truths that our Christianity brings. We are just like the first Christians who were misunderstood, rejected because they believed in the wrong truth. Their position challenged the powers that be during the first two centuries. They had to locate the powerful meaning that their faith in Jesus Christ brought to their lives/family/society. We are in the same position.

As we move through this fog of confusing values, we want to locate the truths of the revelation of Jesus Christ. We want to be claimed by the power of his truths. 

 

We may be living in the fog of moral confusion, but our feet are standing firmly on the ground.

NEVER ATTACK PEOPLES’ RELIGiON

                                  

 

When Saulteaux Nation Chief Felix Thomas and Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations Vice-Chief David Pratt, Friday, June 11, 2021, asked Catholics to boycott the Sunday Mass they stepped into very dangerous territory.

 

We have learnt through centuries of colonization and suppression the incredible damage that can be done when one group/person uses religion to dominate another. Our ancestors, the conquering peoples throughout history, have trampled over the religious sensibilities of the peoples they conquered. Our European settlers made tremendous mistakes when they dismissed the religions of the peoples who lived in the Americas.

 

When the European settlers tore up the sacred texts and tried to stamp out the prayer gatherings/ceremonies of the established population (included here are all the South and North American religious traditions) they sought to crush a people. As a human being, when you attack my religion you attack my person!

 

Throughout the past ten thousand years the conquering forces destroyed and imposed their religious system on the subjected people.

 

When you seek to diminish the religion of another, you are diminishing a person. We have much to repent about the actions and attitudes of our ancestors. We carry their sins in our history.

 

Religion must not be politicized. We have some strong right-wing Catholics who strongly (they are very shrill) want to deny communion to any Catholic who might support a civic law that allows abortion. It is a blatant error to use religion to exclude people.

 

We live in a very polarised society. People are so divided on very important issues. People are so shrill and angry. They do not listen to the position of the other. In too many instances truth has degenerated into “my” truth. Truth is not above and beyond us. Truth does not challenge the entire society. Truth has become in this divided society what I want to make it to be!

 

In front of the religious knowledge and experience of the First Nations peoples we must be silent and reverent. We must recognize their experience of the divine/ transcendent power in the world. We must respect and listen attentively to their prayers and ceremonies. The experience of the divine is much greater than any one of us.

 

First Nations spirituality must stand in respect before the spirituality of the Buddhist tradition. And all people must bring respect to the dignity and the life-giving powers that the religion of each people gives them. This is a time of great learning and a time of strong repentance for any past attitudes that saw “my position is the only one” and “you are all wrong!”

 

We can locate all kinds of attacks and put-downs within Christianity in the year 2021. We are a long way from being perfect. 

 

Holding all the past mistakes in my hands (or in my memory) I must stand before the religion of another person in respect. The religion of another is always sacred. We need to take off our shoes in the presence of the religion of another human being.

 

A person’s religion states clearly their human dignity and value. When I attack the religion of another or use it for political purposes I am attacking the other person. May I never attack the religious values and practices of anyone who is different from me.

 

 

 

THIS IS A SEASON OF DEEP PAIN

                                  

I sit here in deep pain. These past two weeks have been very difficult for Canadians, First Nations peoples, Moslem newcomers to Canada and  the Catholic Church.

 

It has long been a shared memory among our First Nations peoples of the children who did not return from the residential schools. There always were stories that carried these painful memories. The findings of the 215 gravesites at the Kamloops Residential school sent shock waves across our country.

 

Last Sunday, in London, Ontario, a family of five Moslem immigrants from Pakistan were attacked by a half ton truck. (We almost never think of a motor vehicle as a weapon to kill people.) Almost all the country reeled back in disbelief that such a horrendous act of hatred could be committed on one of the streets of our cities. 

 

We hurt! We cry! We shake our head in disbelief!

 

When you hurt you turn inward to survive.  When you have been banged up in a car accident you focus on all the pain and the discomfort of the medications. But very seldom do you focus on the pain and sufferings of the other members of your family standing around your hospital  bed. Concern for the difficulties of other family members may come later.

 

Whenever some trauma hits us or we lose a loved one through death, we need a period to grieve. It can never be programmed. It is messy, unpredictable. Grieving is embracing the pain and the suffering of this trauma/loss. It must become a part of us. It can never be done alone. This is why we need the support, the presence, the prayers of our family and friends when we grieve the death of someone we cherish.

 

This is a time for all of Canada to sit silently, to listen to the pain and suffering of our First Nations peoples. Now, the majority of all Canadians do not know by name any First Nations people personally. This painful time of listening must also become a time a learning and understanding our First Nations story and culture. There can only be healing In our country if we listen non-judgmentally, absorb the beep meaning of the lives of our First Nations peoples and make them part of our own personal history. 

 

At the same time, we must listen to the prejudice that so many of the new immigrants to Canada are experiencing. The brutal murder of four members of one family in London, Ontario, last Sunday is but the horrendous extreme of racial prejudice.

 

It is not good enough to say, “in Canada we can do better!”  This is a time when we must walk into the pain, the trauma, the fear and the sufferings of our First Nations peoples, our new immigrants and all other marginal groups. It is a time to sit in silence and listen. It is a time to allow ourselves to be changed when these people share their stories of suffering, exclusion and made to feel as second-class citizens.

Our Christian religion gives us the tools to do this. Explore in the Bible why there is such a strong emphasis on repentance and the need to once again turn back to God and the ways of life that are laid out for us. But repentance in the Bible never sidesteps the pain and confusion that goes with turning back to God. But only if there is death to all darkness will we ever be able to rise to the light. 

 

This is a hard, hard time but we are not going to cut short any part of the painful and healing journey.