Page 3 - Presbyterian Connection

presbyterian.ca
WINTER 2021
Connection
PRESBYTERIAN
3
Connection
Presbyterian Connection is a quarterly newspaper published by the national office of The Presbyterian Church in Canada.
Barb Summers, Editor
Sarah Curd, Managing Editor Heather Chappell, Copy Editor
Thank you to all volunteer
contributing writers.
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feedback, please email
connection@presbyterian.ca or
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The Presbyterian Church in Canada
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The Presbyterian Church in Canada is a community of over 800 congregations in Canada. presbyterian.ca/church-finder
Moderator of the General Assembly:
The Rev. Dr. Daniel D. Scott
The national office of The Presbyterian Church in Canada is
on the traditional territory of the Huron-Wendat, Petun, Seneca and, most recently, the Mississaugas of the Credit Indigenous peoples.
Presbyterians Sharing is the national church fund that supports the overall mission and ministry of The Presbyterian Church in Canada. The Presbyterian Connection newspaper is funded in part through gifts to Presbyterians Sharing.
PWS&D is the development and relief agency of The Presbyterian
Church in Canada. ________________________
The opinions expressed, books reviewed and activities undertaken by contributing writers reflect
the broad diversity of experience and opinion in the church. Their inclusion in the newspaper is not necessarily an endorsement by The Presbyterian Church in Canada.
MESSAGE FROM THE GENERAL SECRETARY
PRESBYTERIAN
Red paint left on the doors of Grace Presbyterian Church in Calgary., Alta.
The Presbyterian Connection is one part newspaper, one part denomi- national diary and one part fam- ily album. The quarterly publication provides a place to share news, ex- change ideas and perspectives on mission and ministry, and record the lives of congregations and the denomination in short stories and photos. In curating submissions for the newspaper, we seek to build up the church by spotlighting stories that strengthen the church. Many of those stories are positive examples of the varied ways the church faith- fully lives out its witness. Some- times, an important part of building up the church is drawing its attention to difficult news or of the church’s failings and things of which we must repent. As we affirm in Living Faith, “the church is in constant need of reform because of the failure and sin, which mark its life in every age.” Acknowledging that too is part of our witness. In all the Connection’s sto- ries, the denomination’s statements and documents inform the content of the newspaper, and we return to them repeatedly as the functional editorial policy of the paper.
Since the newspaper’s launch, distribution has climbed to approxi- mately 17,500 copies. The feedback we get about the newspaper is al- most always extremely positive. And we have received requests for sub- scriptions from bodies and people beyond the denomination, and we know we have readers on at least
four continents.
The autumn edition of the Connec-
tion yielded the most responses we have received about an individual is- sue of the newspaper so far. The last edition focused largely on the devas- tating news of unmarked graves on or near the grounds of former Resi- dential Schools. Additionally, there were articles on the church’s rela- tionship with Indigenous peoples in Canada, racist beliefs, the church’s collaboration in the harms of coloni- zation and the weight of the trauma that that loss has wreaked in Indig- enous communities. This is harm, in which The Presbyterian Church in Canada shared a large role and the legacy of the Residential Schools and colonialism more broadly, causes harm today. Much of the feedback we received expressed a mix of shock, gratitude, requests for more information and calls for the church to do more. We heard some say that it was the best edition of the newspa- per yet. Some other feedback about the content was very negative, and a small number of people cancelled their subscriptions because they ob- jected to the content and focus.
This time of year, we hear again the story of the birth of a vulnerable child and his family. We hear how Mary pondered in her heart the star- tling things she heard and saw about her son, his birth, youth and identity. “Ponder” comes from the Latin word pondus, meaning weight, importance and burden. To ponder means to bear
the burden of thinking about some- thing important. The Greek word for ponder that the author of the Gospel of Luke uses in chapter 2 verse 19 is symballousa, which means tossing things around or throwing different things together as insights and reali- ties land and collide.
Pondering—taking time to sit with the weight, importance and burden of things—is a vital part of the church’s practice. The reality of the church’s complicity in the sinfulness of Indian Residential Schools is part of our church family history. It is heart- crushing to contemplate the shame- ful sin that the church engaged in by abusing children and families and neglecting the worth and well-being of the children the church separated from their parents and communities. And we should not forget the fami- lies bereft of their children, in some cases forever. The truth about the church and society’s assumptions and systems of thinking that led to the Indian Residential School and continue today are rightly distress- ing and condemning. As difficult as it may be sometimes for the church to bear this reality and to put the truth of what the church has sometimes done together with what it is called to be, it is nothing compared to the pain of those who live daily with the legacy of Residential Schools in their lives and families.
The church has much yet to learn, to ponder, to change and to act upon in the process of repentance and
reconciliation. Nothing as important and complex as this is done easily or quickly. The weight of truth must be born for a long journey. A now saint- ed professor who taught at King’s College University in Halifax used to say to his students when they encountered something disturbing, “First, don’t just do something, sit there.” The wisdom being that before reacting, we might better first listen, ponder and seek guidance towards the truth. Truth pondered, given the weight it calls for, can then guide right action. In Living Faith, one of the documents that informs the content of the newspaper, we affirm that “The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. We pray as a church to be guided into truth knowing that such truth may disturb and judge us.”
Grace Presbyterian Church in Calgary was one of almost a dozen churches that had red or orange paint splattered on its building this past July as an expression of grief, anger, lament and hurt in response to the discovery of over 1,000 unmarked graves at the sites of former Residential Schools in Canada. The decision was to let the stain on the building remain as a means of sitting with and pondering the disturbing truth of the grief and an- ger that people feel about the church’s par ticipation in Residential Schools, which the paint represented. Grace’s witness is an example for the church.
To learn more about the PCC and Residential Schools, visit presbyterian.ca/indigenous-justice.
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