Living into Right Relations: November 2022

Reconciliation and Indigenous Justice News from The United Church of Canada No Reconciliation without Justice   Indigenous members of The United Church of Canada took part in the World Council of Churches’ (WCC) 11th Assembly in Karlsruhe, Germany. Lorna Pawis helped organize the Indigenous Pre-Assembly, playing key roles in opening and closing ceremonies where Sami people from northern Europe welcomed participants to the territory. Sam Miller, a delegate to the Assembly, shared the Haudenosaunee strawberry teaching. Sam was active on an Assembly committee and gave readings in a morning worship service.  Restoring Wholeness in Creation was the Pre-Assembly theme. Former Moderator Stan McKay spoke to the need to “liberate theology” because “much of what happens in church does not lift up the land.” The Pre-Assembly message asserted that “reconciliation that does not include the whole of God’s creation is incomplete and superficial,” and “how healing is directly tied to the well-being of our lands, our waters, and the air we breathe.” It quoted Upolu Vaai from Fiji who said, “Our cultures are libraries of ancestral memory. Our languages which uphold our sacred lands are storehouses of ecological well-being.”  The message claimed Indigenous agency and self-determination in spiritual matters. Indigenous peoples from around the world spoke to how for them, traditional and Christian worldviews cannot work without each other. Moderator Carmen Lansdowne was an observer and helped delegates marshal international support for a specific public statement on Indigenous issues. The statement urged the WCC and its member churches to support Indigenous peoples’ healing from historical trauma and to promote education about Indigenous peoples’ theologies and worldviews. [Image: Sam Miller, image credit: Lori Ransom] Unmarked Burials at Brandon Residential Institution Prairie to Pine Region has posted an extensive update by the Rev. Craig Miller on the ongoing work to locate unmarked burial sites at the Brandon residential institution. In addition, regional archivist Erin Acland worked with Global News on a documentary on unmarked burials at Brandon, run by the Methodist and then United Church from 1895 to 1969. Please see the story and the video here. Many thanks to Erin for her work with the Global team. Archivists across Canada continue to carry much work associated with the search for burials, as well as equally important struggles to access records of family members forced to attend these institutions. The people of Brandon, including members of Knox United Church, continue to hold this crucial work on behalf of the wider United Church. The search, as with all such searches, is very painful for the people of Sioux Valley Dakota Nation, made worse by their inability to access private land long thought to house burials. [Image credit: Prairie to Pine Regional Council] Beauty from Risking Reconciliation     The Rev. Anne Hines of Roncesvalles United Church (RUC) in Toronto writes, “The Walls of Welcome project at RUC began as a question: Knowing that harm is caused when we force others to be what we want them to be (usually “more like us”), what does it feel like to hand over agency and control to someone else, particularly when there is something significant at stake? For us, the answer came as we offered our sanctuary, our precious space, to Indigenous artist Philip Cote and told him he could paint anything he wanted and anywhere he wanted. Then, we began to experience what it feels like to let go.” As he painted, Philip was accompanied by filmmakers PJ Marcellino and Jo Proulx. The filmmakers focused on Philip’s teachings of the “Eighth Fire” prophecy and how the images he created, depicting an Ojibway creation story, related to the prophecy.  Cote plans to lead traditional Indigenous ceremonies in the finished space.   Anne Hines explains that this project took courage for her community, but the result was deep learning: “We feel a sense of greater freedom. Our big cathedral walls, which once served as a fortress that kept others out, have provided exactly what we needed to open our hearts and minds and draw closer together; not just as a church community but with our Indigenous brothers and sisters as well.”   The “Eighth Fire” is available on the United Church of Canada’s website accompanied the story of Walls of Welcome written by Anne Hines. The Justice and Reconciliation Fund was pleased to provide a grant to this project.  [Image credit: Anne Hines] The Living Into Right Relations newsletter takes a break in December. We wish you a blessed Advent and Christmas, and will return in 2023. Facebook Twitter Website Email Instagram YouTube Donate to The United Church of Canada and help fund life changing work around the world!

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