This morning we had Breakfast. I was there for the first part, which was the meal and the beginning of a concert by Jonathan Maracle, a somewhat local guy who describes himself as having a calling to "sing as a Mohawk man." He came with a guitar, a flute, a drum, and a bit of technology to sing for us and talk about who he is and how that flows out of his heritage and his faith in Jesus.
He connected quickly with everybody, talking about the loss of native culture and family. Saying that before the white man came, aboriginals knew about God, by different names, and that what the missionaries should have done is "just give us Jesus and tell us to run with it". Instead, they failed to take the time to get to know who they were talking to, and told them instead "Be like us". Good intentions, good message, poorly communicated.
I'm not sure how many people who live at the Motel have native blood in their veins. When Jonathan spoke about the Miqma'aq people whose name for God was (if I remember correctly) "uncreated creator", one blonde, fair woman turned and elbowed her companion with a big smile on her face and whispered in his ear and nodded.
Seeing that, I started looking around at faces, at eyes, cheekbones, noses. Wondering who else there identified so closely with what he was saying. I started seeing things I hadn't before and wondering just how many came from families devastated by alcoholism, depression, alienation that resulted from the residential school debacle, loss of language, history and connection to the land and broken promises.
Just before I had to leave, Jonathan played a song on his flute. A beautiful instrument carved from cedar, and polished red and smooth. The song was called 'Tears', a tribute to mothers who have worked and worried and mourned for their families. As he played, a simple repetitive melody, the room was silent except for the airy notes wrapping around between the tables and the coffee cups, sliding into a lamenting fall at the end of each phrase. A lovely wordless thing that said so much more than you'd think possible to a room full of cynical, self-sufficient warriors.
When the song ended there was a collective sigh, and a collective inward breath. A moment of communion. A moment of beauty.
I wondered how often these people experience beauty.
After the concert, the doors would stay open for a while for euchre, chess and art, but I had to go. Today was the annual general meeting of the church that provides our financial umbrella and I thought I should be there.
I can't tell you what it means to me to see the community that exists at Breakfast and Dinner. The way everybody comes and smiles and makes way for each other and hangs around after. It's not perfect, of course, but it really is transcendent.
But at the same time, I'm bothered.
The other night I was driving home and took the route past the Motel. As I was approaching it from the east, I had an odd moment where I felt like (and I'm not prone to these things, believe me) I should pray and ask God to give me the property. OK. Fine. I did. I prayed, "God, please give it to me."
Not that I particularly want the thing, but we do worry about what will happen if it sells to some developer who thinks the tower would be just the centrepiece for an expensive condo complex. I said to somebody the other day, our town doesn't even have bridges for people to sleep under. So many of them are physically ill and the rest are mentally ill or addicted. So I'll take it (whatever that means), if it's what God has in mind.
Then this morning, we heard the newest round of rumours that "they're really close to selling the place to a guy who wants to put up apartments." If that happens, the best we can hope for is a few months to find new housing in a town that has none. None. And I mean, none.
So much for community. So much for the encouragement of shared experience and survival and lessons learned. So much for the commiseration of people who understand you.
This week I heard a woman talk about the time she went to the new local welfare office with a friend.
You enter the lobby and walk up to a wall of bullet proof glass, broken only by a slit at desk level to allow the exchange of pieces of paper and nothing else. If you have an appointment, you're escorted through a heavy reinforced door, down a hall and into one of several small rooms. You take a seat at the desk in the middle of the room which is also divided by a sheet of bullet proof glass. You wait there until your worker comes into the other half of the room through a different door. You conduct your business through the same little slit at desk level. The worker is 'protected' from you by the glass and a separate hallway that you can't get to that leads to the offices, and to an emergency door out of the building for when you become dangerous. They don't have to touch you, don't have to breathe the same air, don't have to smell you.
This is the way these people are seen. As, at best, icky, and at worst, a threat.
And all we've got to offer them is a few minutes each week of humanity, warmth and equality.
The thought of losing that makes me feel sick.
r
He connected quickly with everybody, talking about the loss of native culture and family. Saying that before the white man came, aboriginals knew about God, by different names, and that what the missionaries should have done is "just give us Jesus and tell us to run with it". Instead, they failed to take the time to get to know who they were talking to, and told them instead "Be like us". Good intentions, good message, poorly communicated.
I'm not sure how many people who live at the Motel have native blood in their veins. When Jonathan spoke about the Miqma'aq people whose name for God was (if I remember correctly) "uncreated creator", one blonde, fair woman turned and elbowed her companion with a big smile on her face and whispered in his ear and nodded.
Seeing that, I started looking around at faces, at eyes, cheekbones, noses. Wondering who else there identified so closely with what he was saying. I started seeing things I hadn't before and wondering just how many came from families devastated by alcoholism, depression, alienation that resulted from the residential school debacle, loss of language, history and connection to the land and broken promises.
Just before I had to leave, Jonathan played a song on his flute. A beautiful instrument carved from cedar, and polished red and smooth. The song was called 'Tears', a tribute to mothers who have worked and worried and mourned for their families. As he played, a simple repetitive melody, the room was silent except for the airy notes wrapping around between the tables and the coffee cups, sliding into a lamenting fall at the end of each phrase. A lovely wordless thing that said so much more than you'd think possible to a room full of cynical, self-sufficient warriors.
When the song ended there was a collective sigh, and a collective inward breath. A moment of communion. A moment of beauty.
I wondered how often these people experience beauty.
After the concert, the doors would stay open for a while for euchre, chess and art, but I had to go. Today was the annual general meeting of the church that provides our financial umbrella and I thought I should be there.
I can't tell you what it means to me to see the community that exists at Breakfast and Dinner. The way everybody comes and smiles and makes way for each other and hangs around after. It's not perfect, of course, but it really is transcendent.
But at the same time, I'm bothered.
The other night I was driving home and took the route past the Motel. As I was approaching it from the east, I had an odd moment where I felt like (and I'm not prone to these things, believe me) I should pray and ask God to give me the property. OK. Fine. I did. I prayed, "God, please give it to me."
Not that I particularly want the thing, but we do worry about what will happen if it sells to some developer who thinks the tower would be just the centrepiece for an expensive condo complex. I said to somebody the other day, our town doesn't even have bridges for people to sleep under. So many of them are physically ill and the rest are mentally ill or addicted. So I'll take it (whatever that means), if it's what God has in mind.
Then this morning, we heard the newest round of rumours that "they're really close to selling the place to a guy who wants to put up apartments." If that happens, the best we can hope for is a few months to find new housing in a town that has none. None. And I mean, none.
So much for community. So much for the encouragement of shared experience and survival and lessons learned. So much for the commiseration of people who understand you.
This week I heard a woman talk about the time she went to the new local welfare office with a friend.
You enter the lobby and walk up to a wall of bullet proof glass, broken only by a slit at desk level to allow the exchange of pieces of paper and nothing else. If you have an appointment, you're escorted through a heavy reinforced door, down a hall and into one of several small rooms. You take a seat at the desk in the middle of the room which is also divided by a sheet of bullet proof glass. You wait there until your worker comes into the other half of the room through a different door. You conduct your business through the same little slit at desk level. The worker is 'protected' from you by the glass and a separate hallway that you can't get to that leads to the offices, and to an emergency door out of the building for when you become dangerous. They don't have to touch you, don't have to breathe the same air, don't have to smell you.
This is the way these people are seen. As, at best, icky, and at worst, a threat.
And all we've got to offer them is a few minutes each week of humanity, warmth and equality.
The thought of losing that makes me feel sick.
r
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