There’s a New Movement Afoot

The First Nations Peoples across Canada are organizing to make their choices count on Federal Election Day, October 19^th. Tyrone Souliere, an architect of the “Rally the First Nations Vote” movement (RTFNV) spoke recently to a large gathering of both indigenous people, their allies and representatives from the Liberal, NDP and Green parties. As members of London’s Local Truth and Reconciliation Committee, we were privileged to attend the event, held at N’Amerind Friendship Centre in London.

Tyrone, in his message, urged the native people to change their traditional form of resistance from non- voting in elections to casting their votes for the political party that best represents the First Nations communities. The party must honour face- to- face consultations, nation-to-nation over mutual interests including treaty rights, education, environmental protection and economic development. He asked attenders to vote for people who are sensitive to Aboriginal needs.

Honoured guest, Union of Ontario Indians Grand Chief, Patrick Madahbee underscored Tyrone’s message that voting now is part of the Native arsenal to effect change.  Indigenous people have the power in numbers in many ridings to deliver the margin of victory in the upcoming election.  Organized, strategic voting is powerful resistance.

Jean Moylan, csj
Nancy Walesa, csj

“Thank You” - Two of the Most Meaningful Words

For almost six decades Canadians have been encouraged to pause on the second Monday of October to celebrate the harvest and other blessings. The day’s official proclamation, on January 31, 1957, stated that Thanksgiving was to be “A Day of General Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed.”

The following quotes are worthy to reflect upon as we mark once again, what hopefully is much more than just a day off work but truly a day filled with thanksgiving celebrated with family or friends and good food.

“If you made a list of all the things you could be thankful for, the list would undoubtedly be longer than your misfortunes.” Catherine Pulsifer, from Many Blessings

“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” William Arthur Ward, American writer of inspirational maxims

“We are blessed in so many ways; many things we take for granted but we should stop and be thankful each and every day.” Catherine Pulsifer, from Count Those Blessings

“Thank you consists of just eight letters that form two of the most meaningful words in the English vocabulary.” Doborak Norville, American TV journalist. 

Hopefully you’ll take a few moments this Thanksgiving Day, alone or with others, to pause and count your blessings.

Nancy Wales, CSJ

Filling in the Blanks with the Blanket Exercise

Have you ever had the feeling in some interactions that you were not getting “the truth, the whole truth”? This has been the case in the re-telling of our Canadian history, and many are now awakening to the fact of how the truth can “make us free” .

Because there are many “blanks” in Canadian history of the relationship with the Indigenous people of the land, the Blanket Exercise has been devised by KAIROS  http://www.kairoscanada.org/dignity-rights/indigenous-rights/blanket-exercise as a teaching tool for both Indigenous and non-indigenous groups to become aware of the more accurate knowledge of our early Canadian history.

In this interactive workshop, the participants take on the roles of the Indigenous peoples, and some Europeans. The narrator guides the group through the story, as the roles are mimed. The participants walk around on the blankets, which represent the land.

It becomes obvious as the story unravels, that the once friendly and collaborative relationship between the Indigenous and non-indigenous people gradually erodes as the land is taken from the indigenous peoples through broken treaties and laws made by the Europeans.  This is visibly illustrated by the blankets being folded smaller, the participants leaving the blankets because they have been isolated from each other through the Residential school system, or have died off due to the hazardous health conditions to which they were intentionally exposed.

It is a story we would like to put UNDER a blanket, but it is through this very story, once experienced, that there are seeds of possibility planted for real truth and reconciliation to take place.

The participants, whether indigenous or non-indigenous, experience, at a very deep level, the reality of the injustices and the impact of that experience usually leads to constructive action.

The TRC (Truth and Reconciliation Commission) http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/File/2015/Findings/Calls_to_Action_English2.pdf of last June made its several recommendations to the Federal Government.  This broken relationship will not be swept under a blanket. On the contrary, it is by the use of blankets that new life has the potential to emerge as we become empowered to be more knowledgeable and free to be change-makers for a unified and reconciled country.

Kathleen Lichti, CSJ and Priscilla Solomon, CSJ

A Response to the Syrian Crisis

With the recent media coverage of the refugee crisis in Syria, our Casa Maria mission has received much attention. Ruth Hennessey, our director, has shared our expectations and given excellent interviews on T.V and radio both locally and provincially.

Our local catholic school board agreed to partner with Casa Maria for the purpose of relocating a family who has recently fled Syria. These are members of a family whom we sponsored in June 2015: Lelas, her daughter Jena and her son Karam who now reside in Toronto.

Our school board initiated Sept.18 as a teacher and student $5.00 dress down day/crazy hat day in 37 schools with the proceeds going to Casa Maria. Our Toronto refugee family visited a number of our area schools where students had an opportunity to meet, listen and question them about life and experiences.

It was amazing to hear how similar their lives were to ours, until war broke out. At the high school over 100 students listened in rapt attention to this family, intermittently interrupting with cheers and applause. The smiles on the faces of these “new comers” said it all in response to the students` show of support.

Furthermore, since then there has been much interest shown locally within the community. Casa Maria has been busy with speaking engagements and informational meetings to interested groups. Our local Bishop McGrattan, who is no stranger to the refugee cause, has encouraged parish groups within our 4 deaneries to consider working together to offer refuge. Special additional collections at the masses will be encouraged in the parishes to assist those who have taken on this challenge.

Our call for help is an awesome task, but in the work of Mother Teresa “what we do is a drop in the ocean but without it the ocean would be less.” 

Guest Blogger: Barry O’Brien, Chair of the Casa Maria Advisory Board

One’s Compassion Drop Zone

In this blog, I’ll make reference to a “DailyGood.org” article on mindfulness which I found in my email inbox. Mindfulness is defined as a mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment. The mindfulness practices of meditation, contemplative sitting, and mindful breathing to name but a few are well known for their ability to release the tensions of mind and body. In fact various scientific studies have supported this assertion.

However less known is the capacity of mindfulness to increase one’s ability to act with compassion. Sages over the years have cited nature’s predisposition to give. “Today, a growing body of research agrees: we are hardwired to be kind. Cultivating a mindfulness practice helps quiet the various voices of the mind, enabling us to drop into our natural inclination to help others.” KindSpring.org Editors

Researchers discovered that after eight weeks of mindfulness training the compassionate responsiveness of participants to a stimulus situation was boosted to a rate of 50% in comparison to the 15% response rate of the participants in the control group. These results remained consistent regardless of the type of mindfulness training participants were previously given.

Lori Lennon, writing on behalf of Northeastern University of Science where the above research was undertaken,  writes, “ These studies appear to prove what Buddhist theologians have long believed – that meditation is supposed to lead you to experience more compassion and love for sentient beings.”

My reflections on the article left me ever more conscious of the beneficial effects of breaking away from the rush, rush, rush of daily events to pause and drop into my zone of compassion. Periods of mindfulness will not only increase my comfort level but will affect the well-being of others. 

Nancy Wales CSJ