INsight OUT (Things are not always what they seem.)

Well, Shakespeare got it right, “all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts.” This was evident Friday night when thousands gathered as the Pan Am games arrived in Toronto. Here in London, friends and I settled into comfy chairs eagerly awaiting what promised to be a spectacular event. We could not have hoped for more. Cirque du Soleil pulled out all the stops to wow spectators in Toronto, abroad and us, a small reclining group.

From the word go I was dazzled by the stunning, mind-blowing display of beautiful artistry. Colourful gyrating, leaping, bouncing told the story of the hopes and dreams of the young. However, by the time cluster after cluster of hopeful athletes streamed into the stadium, the niggling had begun. Joy and sadness, these two emotions were jostling for control up in 'head-quarters.' Jostling for control just as I had recently seen them jostle in young Riley’s head-quarters in the movie Inside Out. The more I tried to ignore them, the more both clamoured for my attention.  Before my eyes a joyous event unfolded, so why the tinge of sadness? I began to wonder whether I should bring this niggling sadness on the inside out.

The insight dawned gradually. Years of arduous planning, rehearsing and synchronizing culminated in this superbly executed ceremony. Here was Canada, decked in its finest hospitality, ready to host the greatest number ever of enthusiastic athletes from 41 countries, eager to compete and take home one of the 4,283 medals. Behind the scenes, far from the limelight, a less conspicuous, but equally meticulous planning, was done by The Faith Alliance. Their dedicated volunteers have given of their time to prepare to be part of the GIFTbox. This innovative project, created by STOP THE TRAFFICK and the United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking, plays an important part at these Pan Am games. A GIFTbox is a walk-in piece of public art that people will encounter in Toronto at St. James Cathedral on Church Street.  It entices people inside by luring them with enticing promises. Once inside the truth about human trafficking will be revealed.

If as much arduous planning and dedication can be invested in stopping the wide spread human trafficking, as is invested by athletes in preparation to win in these games, you and I can put an end to it. St. Paul used games such as the Pan Am games as an analogy for a life well lived, and wrote: “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever” (1 Cor. 9:24-25). If we can be as focused and dedicated as those ancient runners or the athletes competing at the Pan Am games, we can bring about change. As I hear the Sisters of St. Joseph say over and over again, we are to care for 'the dear neighbour.' We are, indeed, our brother's and sister's keeper.

Like the torch bearers at the opening ceremony, let us fervently carry the torch for all who are being trafficked. May our torches light a cauldron, a flaming sign proclaiming no more human trafficking! 

Yes, all of us are merely players; we have our exits and our entrances, and each of us in our time plays many parts.  Let us play our part well and when that last day comes, cross the final ‘finish line’ together.

Guest blogger, Sister Magdalena, cps, is a member of the Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood. She currently ministers as a hospital chaplain.

Nelson Mandela: Through the Lens of his Photographer Friend

Nelson Mandela Day – July 18, 2015
Over the years I’ve often been asked what Nelson Mandela, ‘Madiba’, was really like - why he smiles so much and why he only served one term as President of the Republic of South Africa.

Many of us want to believe that he really was who we saw him as, that his smile was real both in public and in private, and to somehow try to believe that it was only his great age that limited his years as President of the Republic of South Africa. The truth is that each of these questions hinges on a privilege I had for ten years, the privilege I had to witness a man interacting with the world in both the public arenas, and those special enough to be with him in his home and office at The Nelson Mandela Foundation.

As a photographer commissioned to the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory, so much of my duty and work was to watch and listen, to remain in the shadows but with an eye fixed solely on this great man through the lens of a camera.

I understand that I am no President Bill Clinton, no Oprah Winfrey or Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, whose great voices have proclaimed great things about this one man. There will never be a time in the future where, whatever I say, will add to the great chorus of those great and mighty men and women in leadership and influence around the world. Yet on reflecting over the past few years since Mandela’s passing, I realize that there is only one path that will see this man grow from hero to legend and legend to myth and that is the voice of the common man and woman who today keep telling the stories of the day they met Mandela. It is their story, the undocumented, the unknown stories of those who just happened to be in the right place at the right time and found themselves looking into the warm face of a person we could all easily recognise as a grandfather.

Herein begins my story. The story of a young boy who dreamed and actively pursued finding Mandela for nine years just to have the opportunity of shaking this great man’s hand. To shake it, make my comments to him and then to go on my way back out into the world, confident that the man I trusted for so long to be, who I wanted him to be, was indeed real. I thought it would take one 10 minute meeting to do this. It took me ten years of repeatedly walking through his office door to photograph him to truly appreciate and respect who this man really was.

Was Madiba really what he seemed? Yes. One of the things I can say with great confidence is that the man I came to know was the same man in public as he was in private. That’s an incredible thing to say about someone. Of course we all think how this was possible.  It’s possible because he was a man at peace with himself. His life experience had challenged him to make peace with himself, to wrestle with what I call a ‘civil war’ that rages on within each of us. Mandela had learned to command it, to govern its unruly behaviour. Did this mean he never got cross or never spoke ill of someone? Mandela in public scolded those who broke the boundaries of discipline, deceitfulness and who acted without concern for the livelihood of others. In private, any anger or intolerance towards another was born from that same conviction he displayed especially during his prison years with fellow prisoners and during the early 90’s when he was negotiating with the Nationalist Party. He was a man of principle who led with his heart but governed with his head.

I’ve heard people criticize leaders for being too boring, stoic and serious. However, I’ve heard others on the complete opposite end criticize Mandela for always smiling. I’ve often wondered why Madiba, without prompting, would break out in the biggest smile, why whenever he entered a room he would be the loudest man. Often I would hear him coming from the other side of the Mandela Foundation. Why is this? I return to the life lessons Madiba experienced and having personally spent eighteen months living and working on Robben Island, having documented the greatest part of this man’s sixty-four years actively fighting the Apartheid system, my conclusion is simple and perhaps profound.

When Mandela walked to freedom on the 9^th of February 1990 from Victor Verster Prison, his physical walking to freedom was indeed a great victory, an action that resounded around the world. Yet Mandela’s own personal victory lay hidden and unseen for many more years.

On the occasion of Robben Island formally closing as a place of imprisonment and isolation, Mandela took a rock from the Lime Quarry and told the world that he made a choice when he walked to freedom, and that was to forgive. With that rock in his hand he symbolically placed the rock on the ground as a symbol of him laying down his heavy load. He told the world that if he did not choose to forgive even though he was a free man, he would forever remain a captive within his heart to those who had held him prisoner for twenty-seven years. Mandela made a choice that day; it was that choice to forgive that truly released him that day in February 1990.

Madiba smiled because he could; he laughed out loud because he could. He chose at every public and private reception that I had the privilege to attend with him to find the lowest, most junior person in the room to shake their hand because he could. His victory within gave him that pleasure, that joy, that smile and that laugh that was so hard fought for.

As we reflect now on what would have been Madiba’s 97^th birthday, and what we have all learned about Mandela’s life, many things come to mind. For me, Madiba had one last trick up his sleeve. Madiba chose one of his greatest achievements to yet again make a clear statement to leaders around the world and in particular to the many despot leaderships that exist in Africa today. By personal choice Mandela stepped down from power on his own accord after serving only one term in office. Whilst the world was begging him to run for another term of office, something he admits he could have easily done, he stepped aside at the very pinnacle of his success. Like the great symbol of hope his life came to mean, he left an echoing call to his political peers across Africa that you don’t hold onto power but you hand it over to the next generation to lead. Mandela was the first African leader to voluntarily step down from power. This was a smack in the face to many of the African leaders we have in power today, some going on to forty years in power.

So now, as time passes, I find myself alone deep in thought trying to squeeze from my memory everything I experienced, all I heard, the myriad of people who have all gone away back into the world and now share their story about the day they met Nelson Mandela.

Do I miss him? Yes, there is not a day that goes by when I don’t think what he meant to me; his funny voice, his mannerisms, how he always called me ‘Prince Harry’ (much to the confusion of those around him) but most of all I remember how on one fresh spring morning I was sitting with him and I asked him what I could do to perhaps help others, to help my country. Madiba looked out the window and then quickly back at me and answered, “You know, if you want to remain relevant, you must serve,”… and that’s exactly what I set about doing.

Guest Blogger: Matthew Willman

Website: www.matthewwillman.co.za

MW Foundation for the Arts: www.mwvaf.org

Opinion: De-Colonizing Canada

Canada is often seen as a bastion of prosperity, human rights and freedoms. But news about missing and murdered Indigenous women, woefully inadequate health care on reserves and UN reports that highlight “distressing socio-economic conditions” for Indigenous peoples in Canada stand in sharp contrast to this narrative.

This news, however, highlights what many First Nations, Métis and Inuit already know: Canada for them is a place of racism, poverty and inequity.

Changing this reality will require acknowledging and addressing an ugly ghost — our colonial history — because its legacy haunts us still.

Some students were forbidden to speak their languages and taught that their cultures and faith were substandard and invalid because they were not European or Christian. At the same time, non-Indigenous Canadians were taught that Indigenous peoples were inferior.

From the 1870s to the 1990s, Indigenous children were removed from their homes and placed in Indian Residential Schools. Funded by the federal government and run by churches, the schools were a national project of assimilation. For more than five years, through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, residential school survivors have shared their devastating experiences of fear, loss, dislocation and abuse.

Now, Indigenous and non-Indigenous people have a new opportunity to work toward right relationship — a relationship built on mutual respect. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission began in 2010 and closed with ceremonies, May 31-June 3, in Ottawa. [During gatherings held ] in Winnipeg, Inuvik, Halifax, Saskatoon, Montreal, Vancouver and Edmonton, we learned about the schools’ intergenerational legacy, the manifestation of colonization.

We now have much of the truth. We also have hope for reconciliation. To realize this hope and end the deplorable conditions facing Indigenous peoples, we need concrete action that transforms attitudes and public policies.

The churches that operated the schools and those that did not, but feel complicit in colonization, have begun this process.

Indigenous peoples are inviting Canadians into movements of change like Idle No More that help us to understand how aspects of colonization continue in the way we exploit the land and waters upon which we all depend.

All Canadians need to be involved. Residents of Canada are the beneficiaries of colonization. How can we, in effect, decolonize? What will a decolonized Canada look like?

In this decolonized Canada, Indigenous histories and cultures are taught in schools and to new Canadians; everyone knows whose traditional territory they live on and the treaty or ancestral law that governs it.

In this decolonized Canada, even the most remote Indigenous communities enjoy the same standard of living as their non-Indigenous neighbours, with access to clean water, healthy food and equitable education. There is an inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women to understand the roots of the problem and to help inform effective, collaborative solutions. Indigenous languages and cultures are thriving. Indigenous peoples are no longer treated like wards of the state, but as nations, with collective rights.

This Canada recognizes and respects treaties. This Canada upholds the standards of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which declares that Indigenous peoples have the right to free, prior and informed consent on activities that directly impact their land, and all Indigenous peoples have the right to determine their own futures.

This Canada is not here yet. There is still racism, inequity and suicide. We are still in the hope stage, but the will for reconciliation is growing. The time is now to acknowledge our colonial ghost and take action toward right relations so that the narrative of Canada better reflects reality.

De-Colonizing Canada appeared earlier in the Montreal Gazette and is rewritten here with permission of its author Jennifer Henry who is the executive director of KAIROS: Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives, based in Toronto. www.kairoscanada.org

Lost Spirit?

Have you ever walked into a room and forgot why you were there?  Have you ever gone to the grocery store and left your list at home? I am often guilty of this kind of forgetfulness. Before getting to the corner I realize I’ve forgotten something important at home that I was supposed to bring along. As I return my husband chuckles, "What is it this time?" Out of frustration with my habit, I had even asked my guardian angel to assist me with this problem. No luck, until last weekend when experience became my best teacher.

While visiting my daughter in Oshawa, I watched an excellent documentary on Netflix called G-Dog. In the video Father Greg relates a story of being with a tribe in South America and walking in the jungle.  Every so often the guide would stop a minute or two then continue on.  After a couple of times, Father Greg asked why he was doing this. The guide replied, "It gives the Spirit time to catch up."

The next day with everything packed and purse in hand; I stopped to give everyone a hug and to pet the dogs.  I headed to the store to shop for flowers for a great aunt. Five blocks away, no purse. This time instead of being upset with myself, I had to smile. With all the business of saying good-bye, I did not let my Spirit catch up with me. It was an opportunity to practice a lesson learned. Whenever forgetfulness arrives to take the time to ask, "Where is my Spirit?"

Zen master, Thich Naht Hanh, calls the above reflective pausing mindfulness, which can be heightened through a simple practice called –‘ the bell of mindfulness’; when you hear a bell, stop and be in the moment. http://plumvillage.org/mindfulness-practice/bell-of-mindfulness/

Helen Bonyai - CSJ associate

God’s Hands in the World

“What good is there in your saying to the {needy}, ‘God bless you!  Keep warm and keep well!’ – if you don’t give them the necessities of life?  So it is with faith; if it is alone and includes no actions, then it is dead.”  (James 2:16)

The Leamington Area Ecumenical Refugee Committee (LAERC) has heeded James’ warning since its inception.  The committee celebrated its tenth anniversary on June 7^th, 2015. The group has sponsored 54 refugees including twelve families. These refugees are from areas such as Columbia, Iraq, Malaysia, and theMyanmar refugee camp. 

A special part of the anniversary celebration was meeting former refugees from the past decade. They witnessed to the progress the refugees have made in Canada by sharing stories such as a man opening his own successful cleaning business. Others are pursuing post-secondary education. Generous donations allow LAERC to award small bursaries for further education and to provide art therapy and recreational activities such as skating, swimming, and soccer experiences for children. LAERC also contacted The War Amps-Ontario which is providing a prosthetic arm for a young boy. 

Upon arrival in Leamington, refugees depend on LAERC to review documents and a myriad of government paper work. The committee also assists in contacting translators for many of their needs such as the procurement of social insurance and OHIP numbers.            

The Canadian government provides refugee funding for six months after which the LAERC committee raises funds through the Christian churches in the Leamington area. LAERC’s many tasks include securing housing, furniture, appliances and other necessities to provide for the needs of the refugees. The members also teach adults how and where to shop for food and clothing while also instructing newcomers in the use of home appliances such as modern stoves, thermostats, washers and dryers. 

Once refugees are settled in their new surroundings, the committee maintains contact through annual gatherings on Canada Day and in December before Christmas. Together, the Leamington Area Ecumenical Refugee Committee and its new Canadians are living faith in action. The kingdom of God is already among us.

Elaine Cole csj