Sunday October 2, 2022

Friday September 30 was Orange Shirt Day, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

            Forty years ago, such an event would have been unthinkable. 

            And then, in March 1985, a woman named Alberta Billie did the unthinkable. She told a meeting of the United Church of Canada’s Executive that the church should apologize for its role in running “Indian” residential schools. 

            A little more than a year later, on August 15, 1986, the church’s moderator, the Rev. Bob Smith, led the church in Canada’s first-ever apology to Canada’s indigenous peoples. 

            I was there. Not in any official capacity. Just as a journalist, observing. 

            The church’s General Council, its highest court, was meeting in Sudbury, at Laurentian University. The evening of August 15, about 500 delegates (officially called commissioners) crowded into the main assembly hall to hear Smith present his draft text of The Apology. 

            The capital letters are deliberate.

Unfamiliar process

            Smith had heard Alberta Billy. He was convinced that the church needed to apologize. Not just for having collaborated in running some residential schools. But even more, for having denigrated, denied, and dismissed the social and spiritual culture of Canada’s indigenous people. 

            His text said, in part, “We confused Western ways and culture with …the gospel of Christ. We imposed our civilization as a condition of accepting the gospel. We tried to make you be like us and in so doing we helped to destroy the vision that made you what you were. As a result, you, and we, are poorer…”

            Now he had to convince 500 commissioners to accept it. By consensus. 

            The United Church had little experience with consensus. Traditionally, church meetings ran on parliamentary procedure: motion, amendment, amendment to the amendment, each debated individually …

            The commissioners agreed to proceed by consensus -- and immediately started moving amendments. 

            Smith broke tradition. He refused to accept amendments. Formal or friendly. Smith knew that one change would lead to another, either pro or con. The debate would go on forever.

            His rulings led to points of order, and points of privilege, and mutters of discontent. 

            At times, he had to plead with the assembly: “Can we just agree on this?”

            Eventually, they did. 

Received, not accepted

            From there on, my memories are less clear. 

            I know that Bob Smith led the entire assembly, all 500 commissioners plus staff and visitors, out into the night. It was a dark night. Moonless, I think. The stars were so close, we felt we could reach up and touch them, 

            We walked to the far end of the university’s parking lot, where the “Native” leaders had set up giant tepees. It took a lot of time for all those people to shuffle through the night to the "Indian" encampment. 

            A huge bonfire sent sparks up into the darkness to meet the stars. Its flames flickered on the teepees. I think I remember seeing Bob Smith go into one teepee with the paper on which he had written The Apology. I watched the shadows of people moving around inside the teepee. 

            Then my memory blurs further. Did Smith and indigenous leaders come out together? Did he read The Apology aloud to everyone gathered around the fire? Or did they simply declare that The Apology had been received?

            Note the wording. “Accepted” would have implied finality. It was done. Over. “Received” because it wasn’t over, yet. 

            I recall a lot of hugging and handshaking. And tears. Perhaps we sang a hymn – that’s often how we demonstrate unity. 

            And then we walked home. They, to their accommodation. We, to ours. 

Still separate

            And tragically, it is still so. They are “them,” and we are “us.”

            A host of other institutions have since followed the United Church’s lead by making their own apologies. The Oblates of Mary Immaculate, who ran most of the residential schools, in 1991. The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, also in 1991. The Anglican Church of Canada, in 1993. The Presbyterian Church in Canada in 1994. 

            The United Church itself offered a second apology in 1998, specifically focussed on residential schools. 

            The federal government, finally, issued its own apology, on behalf of all the peoples of Canada, in 2008.

            Pope Francis, during his “penitential pilgrimage” to Canada last summer, didn’t formally apologize, but did ask for forgiveness. 

            Twenty-six years after Bob Smith led the United Church through that first Apology, our apologies are still words. We still want to make amendments. We want to work things out so nothing really has to change.

            We’ve come a long way since 1985. We still have a long way to go. 

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Copyright © 2022 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups encouraged; links from other blogs welcomed; all other rights reserved.

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Your turn

Last week, I pondered on one (just one) all-candidates meeting for a local election. 

            “It’s been years since I attended one of those meetings,” Cliff Boldt responded. “They are often a good snapshot of the local community. I remember a politician once said: ‘Tax is not a four-letter word’.”

I had also commented on the lack of sound and fury in municipal meetings, compared to provincial and federal elections. 

            Isabel Gibson suggested, “Follow the money, I guess. Compared to the feds and the provinces, municipalities spend less, contract-out less, and pass less legislation that affects how businesses can make money. The power associated is correspondingly less, and so we get fewer candidates. In Ontario about 1 out of 5 positions will be filled by acclamation this cycle.

            “In smaller places, the jobs of reeve and councillor are part-time, at least by the pay if not by the hours. Even Kingston's mayor is part-time, and it's a city of 130,000. Working what amounts to an extra shift in municipal politics is a lot to ask of someone who is already employed full-time, whether at home or outside the home.

            “We saw a televised meeting/debate for all our ward candidates, and they behaved like your lot. Respectful of each other and of the limits of their influence. Not a bad mantra.”

Gloria Jorgenson took a similar perspective: “I look back on the old adage ‘When all is said and done, more will be said than done’. Still, I’m happy to hear it stayed respectful. It’s nice to know people can still disagree without being disagreeable.”

Larry Smith explained why election campaigns get nasty: “From a marketing perspective media output is always measured in dollars. Readers, listening audiences and viewers are measured, ratings developped and advertising revenues set which sets budgets and yields a measurable amount of money. 

            “When unscrupulous media types decide that a little bit of outrage will increase ratings, writers and hosts are encouraged ‘spice things up’. Voila! Numbers go up and more dollars come in. Even more gas is poured onto the fire and even more money is generated! 

            “Unfortunately, from the publics’ perspective this process is invisible but it also has very little to do with truth or common sense in print or on the air.”

Stephanie McClellan: “Is it possible that we need new language for disagreeing? The words we have -- whether we are the right or the left -- are so loaded that there is very little civility left on either side. I would guess that most of us are in the middle of the spectrum instead of on the extremes. 

            “I almost missed graduating from seminary because I wrote my final thesis at VST about Liberal Fundamentalism trying to suggest that whichever extreme that holds to the ‘my way or the highway’ mentality is equally damaging. Now, with United Church Regions becoming Affirming, I have already seen exclusion for people who do not yet agree with that theology. If we have to trade centuries of hurt and exclusion for one group into payback for the other, we will be centuries away from civility and God’s Shalom and openness at the Table. How will we ever learn to dialogue and reconcile and live peaceably together if we can’t get past name calling?”

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PROMOTION STUFF…

To use the links in this section, you’ll have to insert the necessary symbols. (This is to circumvent filters that think some of these links are spam.)

            Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” is an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. http://wwwDOTchurchwebcanadaDOTca. He set up my webpage, and he doesn’t charge enough.

            I recommend Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, wwwDOTtraditionaliconoclastDOTcom. She also runs beautiful pictures. Her Thanksgiving presentation on the old hymn, For the Beauty of the Earth, Is, well, beautiful -- https://www.traditionaliconoclast.com/2019/10/13/for/

            Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatsoATgmailDOTcom (NB that’s “watso” not “watson”)

ALVA WOOD ARCHIVE

            The late Alva Wood’s collection of satiric and sometimes wildly funny columns about a mythical village’s misadventures now have an archive (don’t ask how this happened) on my website: http://quixotic.ca/Alva-Wood-Archive. Feel free to browse all 550 columns