THE CHURCH is BURNING ...

?? THE CHURCH is BURNING | > Prelude: Suzanne and I have just returned from holidaying in Syilx Okanagan Territory. To get there, we traveled through Treaty Six and Seven Territory (The lands of the Cree, Peigan, and Blackfoot), unceded Kootenay, Chilkotin and Interior Salish Territory. I am grateful to these communities for the opportunity to share in the beauty of their lands. When we left home, I was carrying the knowledge of the Churches burning and evidence of more and more remains being discovered outside residential schools. As we returned home, we returned home to the news of evidence of more remains at the site of Kuper Island Industrial School, as reported by Penelakut First Nation. This is what I wrote on day two of our holiday:

?? The Church is Burning. Indictment. Words fail for a lover of peace. Who walks down the middle, Trying to go the distance between camps. Looking for weaknesses in the wall. For ways to bring it down. The Church is burning. And the cardinal hides. The Church is burning; Is this the sentencing of history? The Church is burning Following an inheritance such as this.

?? As I sit in my pew. I feel the flames And a deep abiding sadness. I pray. I listen To the anger and the rage. To the voice of God. Who counsels love. Who counsels courage. This inheritance is ours. This inheritance is a yoke. And this yoke is not easy; this burden is not light. Contemplation in grief. Listening to pain. Presence to each other. As each awaits an invitation from. The other side. To add my strand to the bridge that must be built. To start from scratch again.

?? If we are to set fire, Let us build a bonfire in the night, The dark night of our collective soul. Let us fuel the flames First with the Doctrine of Discovery, Second, with our arrogance, Third our with our indifference and our fear. We must climb this mountain Of our own making With our armour on our backs, Weighing us down, Only the child can forgive our sins, Sending that armour And the instruments of our oppression over the edge.

?? And children can only forgive If we kneel before them. Spent and vulnerable from our journey through Our history, Reclaiming our story and letting That which was omitted from our Schooling be told to us, By the children of our fathers’ victims. Only then can we contribute to the writing a new chapter. This time we must let the embers From our burning Church sear our lips and our hearts, With the love of God, so our ears can hear.

?? Or we will do no better than our fathers. As we huddle in the ruins, We must allow the spirit of love to descend upon us, To permit ourselves to go out and Listen to our story, a Affirm our story and To deal with our story. Then and only then can Will the terms of reconciliation make sense. There is no more us and them in we. And we are the Church, As broken and scorched as we are. –

? Paul Preston