A Slight Eye Opener and a SHAMELESS Plug

First of all, let's start off with a shameless plug. It would be for my friend Jason and his brand new, hot off the presses blog. Yes, another one has been welcomed into the highly addictive world of e-diaries and blogging. As my brother says, "Virtual friendship, how it warms my soul."

So check out Mr. Jason's blog and in the future, he's just a click away on the links to your right.

Also, if you want a great laugh you can hop over to Dave's blog. He's currently in England helping do really cool mission work, although he sadly got McFood Poisoning the other day....

And now for the slight eye opener. If you want to just keep reading happy stuff, maybe stay away from this one. Tonight was an interesting one to say the least.

I have a friend whom I have been getting to know through the gatherings here in Canada. His name is Matt and he has a crazy heart for the 1st Nations people of Canada. I always thought I had a pretty good handle on things, but as of late I have been seeing that I am sadly wrong. I do count myself priviledged to walk with some of the main spiritual mother's and father's of Canada who are native leaders, so I get to learn a bunch from them. Plus they help me in my "whiteness", which we usually have a good laugh about.

I was with this one lady in particular back in November and she said something that troubled me. She told me about how much we as a church are completely out of touch with the raging emotions going on in the native community. A big thing in the church lately has been seeing reconciliation come to the white people and the 1st Nations, and seeing them be honored and put into a place that they have always deserved. My friend Carol said that we have no idea what is actually happening when the 1st Nations are hearing that and how there is real rumblings and great misunderstanding still in hearing that.

To be honest I had no idea what she was talking about. But I listened as I have learned to do with her. To say she is stately would be a gross understatement. When you are in Carol's presence you are in the presence of royalty.

I think I got a first glimpse of what is boiling beneath the surface.

As I said, Matt has a huge heart for the 1st Nations. He is well respected by many of their leaders and has literally given his entire life for them. He is majoring in Native Studies in University, which should tell you something. And he's white.

This might not make sense to the American's, but bear with me. I know there is a heck of a lot of hurt on that side of the border too, but you have to come and really spend some time and see the culture up here to get a good sense of what's going on. It's way worse and way more embarrassing and way more in your face - if you see.

So Matt gave a little talk about his heart and some of the points that we are going to have to address as a nation here pretty soon. He was very diplomatic about it and even talked to the native people in our small group before starting his talk. I thought that was incredible.

He talked a lot about the residential schools that the Canadian Government set up and how horrible they were. Basically, white man came along, set's up schools to teach the native children English and "culture" and present to them the "gospel". Although usually all of that was done through beatings and horrific abuse. They would round the children up and send them all off to residential schools hundreds and hundreds of miles away from their families.

Not only that, but they were generally denied their culture, forced to conform to white man's way - such as cutting their hair. Long hair is a symbol of honor, so making a native kid cut their hair off is publicly shaming them.

We thought we were culturing them.

Not everything that happened was bad. We can't paint the entire system with a negative light. But we sure can't paint the entire system with "it was a great success". We can't even say that it was a 30% success. We can no longer even say, "Well, it was the best that we knew at the time."

The best that we knew was flat out wrong and horrible no matter what positives came from it. Take a look at the wide sector of the native population in Canada and try to justify what happened. It was common practice to beat the kids if they spoke their own language! What the heck is that?

So Matt talked a while about that and coming to grips and seeing just what sick stuff we did in decimating entire people groups, not just then, but now. They are alive, but we are responsible for obliterating a culture. Even now, I have no place to say it properly.

We opened our small group up for general discussion and I was not at all prepared for what happened next.

Turns out a senior couple who comes to our small group every once and a while were the people who not only oversaw, but set up residential schools for the entire north of Canada. Not only that, but they oversaw the ones in Northern Alberta as well. These were actually the people who ran the schools. The husband told us that he was one who would go to the reserves and take the children away. He was responsible for it all.

I couldn't believe it.

But I got a good look at what the situation is like on the surface. He gave quite a passionate response justifying the residential schools, acknowleging the shortfalls, but justifying nonetheless.

I thought about how communist Russia used to invite people to come and study in Russia and they were in turn indoctrinated with communism and then sent back to the country they came from. Sort of the same, but really not. Still, how would I like to be taken away by a strange Russian speaking man one day and given the best education available. Although that education was to convert me to atheism, communism and the higher, better way of life. This Russian man and the system may truly have believed it was for the better and have had the best intentions. But at the end of it all, I still was stolen from my way of life and forced to conform to another against everything in me whether I knew it or not.

I felt sad, because this man honestly thought residential schools were a good thing. He honestly thought that when a person receives Christ that their culture is in essence "sanitized" and now we all look the same. Everyone now must give up their ways and look like white man.

He honestly thought that and gave a passionate argument for it. You can't argue that. He really believes it's true and wasn't being a jerk about it.

But it's so wrong.

I talked with Susan (she is full blooded Cree) after and just asked her if she was alright. She gave a brave smile to me and said, "No. I feel very heavy and very sad. But what was said tonight has to be said. We all have to begin talking about it before we can get anywhere." Susan's entire family was in residential schools and her family has been torn to pieces - alcoholic's, drug addicts.

Jesus said something about judging a tree by it's fruit.

Dad talked to Matt after and all Matt said is, "And the 1st Nation's hurt and passion about what they feel is three times as deep."

Oh my gosh.

So I think tonight I kind of understood what Carol said to me last November. Here we come, thinking that everything will be made right and it will be nice and easy between white Canada and 1st Nation's Canada. We fail to realize there may be some serious dyeing to self and we also fail to realize the depth and extent of destruction we rained down upon the 1st Nations People.

The good thing is that before we had no hope of ever addressing this. Matt said it beautifully tonight in that what the government has tried to fix by spending billions of dollars on, we will fix by spending our lives and our love on. This is a spiritual problem and will only be healed by the power of God. Not sanitizing through religion, but placing Jesus Christ in the place He belongs in every culture and people group - and through not compromising His message for the sake of staying true to culture. Some things have to die. And yes, I was told that by Carol herself.

I think tonight was good to see that this is probably going to be hard work. Dad pointed out that talking frankly about the residential schools is like attacking this man's life work and what he honestly believes God called him to do. That really puts a twist on things. But mom did point out that justice will never come if we keep seeking to justify. But just imagine the weight of it all when this man really sees what he put his hand to and did to an entire culture - to children all over the north region. All the good intentions in the world cannot fix that.

This is why we must pray for both sides because it's not going to be pretty when we all truly see. It's going to be real hard for this man to come to grips with what he put his hand to. We'll have to come around him and pour into him and truly bring him to the forgiveness of Jesus... Probably so he could forgive himself. And then bring the 1st Nations to a place where they can honestly come and forgive people like this guy. His heart is pure gold - if you ever met him, you cannot deny that. He is a precious man. He truly did the best with what he knew how... It was just so, so, so wrong.

What a mess.

I guess that cheesy saying really is true, "God wants to take our mess and turn it into a message."