“Go beyond… Life is helping us.”
Message from Ha Na
Last Sunday, March 11, I experienced the “Spring of joy”. It was still the middle of Lent, but there was a sense of accomplishment about the journey we were making through the four Lenten services. Our series of “Steps on the Journey towards Reconciliation” received very positive feedback, but the most important reward for me was to see how people truly seemed to feel their worship experience and learning about reconciliation was heart-changing and meaningful. I could see in people’s faces how pleased, how uplifted, how contented by the spirit of truth they were, when they were leaving. That observation filled my heart with living water to become a spring of joy.
If you have joined one or more of our last services on Reconciliation, please do this activity with me as you reflect on what we’ve learned together in community:
What were the highlights or the words you wished to remember?
For me, the highlight in the first service was “Unravelling” our past history in a ritual where we actually unravelled strands of wool. (Joan McDonald, who knitted an unfinished shawl just for this service, said that it was harder to knit mistakes than to make it right.) At the end of the service, as Benediction, we connected everyone in the circle with the unravelled strands, passing and holding them.
In the second service, Lorraine Kakegamic, our own church member and a member of Keewaywin First Nation, encouraged us to do more study and action as church. She said, “The healing has begun and is happening. There is action to be done. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission made recommendations and issued Calls to Action, and mentioned the churches in the calls to action. Reconciliation is an ongoing process and will require commitment from everyone.”
I am grateful that in the third service, Stan McKay shared with us this memorable wisdom:
“The shared life is mystery, not management.”
I took that piece of wisdom this way: Reconciliation is really a journey to go beyond ourselves, willing to let go of the unnecessary burden of trying to make everything fit to the limits of our model, our control.
I agreed with Ruth Campbell, our Guiding Elder of Living our Faith in the World Cluster, when she said, after all of our four services finished, “We all became a massive team who had a common vision, and we pulled it all off. Now we need to think of what comes next.”
The question “What’s next?” invites us to think about which seeds we will plant next. Not just one, but many seeds, planted in multiple ways. I was challenged by Stan McKay when he encouraged us, during his message, to consider displaying the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in our bulletin or in our space. We are also planning to create an ecumenical workshop on Truth and Reconciliation for the churches and the people in East Kildonan neighbourhood and nearby areas, inviting all who are interested to plan it with us.
In fact, we can find many ways to go beyond ourselves. Ultimately, the word “Beyond” captures the true meaning of spirituality. In its most basic sense, going beyond means going past where we are now. It means not staying in our current state.
In the remainder of the season of Lent, please continue your journey of going beyond. Easter is Mystery. It is the event and experience of encountering the risen Jesus. It is Mystery because no one can plan out the resurrection here and now. Easter as Mystery is something we can only plant like seeds, with open hearts, open minds, open doors. When we go through a hard situation, we can still plant one beautiful thing. Resilience and resistance, healing and inner peace must go hand in hand.
In faith, we must believe…
Life is surrounding us with people and stories that stimulate growth.
Life is helping us.
God is with us.
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