How Then Shall We Live?

reflections on canada’s first National Day for Truth and reconciliation

by Jessica Banninga

Jessica is communications and social media specialist with CBM AS A 24-YEAR-OLD WOMAN, my first sustained learning experience of Indigenous history and justice issues was at university. In one of my classes, the Truth and Reconciliation’s 94 Calls to Action were handed out in small booklets. Indigenous issues continued to be a theme through my learning and I am very grateful to the professors who intentionally integrated these topics into my degree. It’s through those learning opportunities, I have become aware of my responsibilities to walk in a good way with the First Peoples of Turtle Island (North America).

September 30 was a historic day. For the first time in Canadian history, people across the country paused to recognize the first National Day of Truth and Reconciliation. Many people also wore orange shirts as awareness around Orange Shirt Day and Phyllis (Jack) Webstad’s story continues to grow since its establishment in 2013.

Canadian Baptist Ministries (CBM) invited Canadian Baptists across the country to take part in a Service of Remembrance and Reflection. Speakers included Cheryl Bear, former CBM Indigenous Relations Specialist; Danny Zacharias, associate professor for New Testament Studies at Acadia Divinity College and a faculty member at the North American Institute for Indigenous Theological Studies (NAAITS) and pastor Gordon Petawabano with his wife Mary Jane Petawabano—both of whom are Indian Residential School survivors.

Danny Zacharias shared a reflection on the importance of this new national day and closed with a drum song in honour of the children, and for the healing of survivors, and for families and communities whose children did not come home.

The importance of remembering Danny shared about why this new national day was important. “The future is nothing but what we tell or don’t tell about the past. [And] the future will be as good as the telling of our past is truthful,” he shared. Danny attributed this insight to theologian Chris Green—an insight that sparked him to meditate on the importance of remembering.

We speak the truth and tell the stories as we move forward in a better way, and commemoration is an important way to do this—human beings are forgetful. Danny reminded us that throughout Scripture, God called His people to remember: when they were in slavery, when they were in exile, when He gave them victory.

For Danny, Scripture also shows us that physical ceremony or embodiment is an integral part of that holy call: eating lamb during the Passover to remember the Exodus; living in tents for seven days to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles; taking communion to remember Jesus’ death on the cross.

“We are forgetful people,” said Danny, “and we need to remember in good ways. Not simply to recall something to mind, but to enter into an embodied act of remembrance. We must educate ourselves and listen to the stories. As Chief Justice Murray Sinclair said, ‘This nation must never forget what it once did to its most vulnerable people.’” Our call to remember As September 30 becomes an annual event on our calendars, may we strive to be people who choose to remember. May we remember God’s call to do justice, spoken through the prophets (Isaiah 1:17, Micah 6:8). May we sit in the uncomfortable truth of Genesis 4:10, when God tells Cain that Abel’s blood cries out to him from the ground. Injustice is not forgotten by those who are affected. Families remember. Communities remember. God remembers. And the land remembers.

May we also recognize that we have benefitted and continue to benefit from injustices of the past— injustices that were intentionally and expressly done to the Indigenous peoples of this land. And so, may we be people that enter into holy lament. May we take the time to feel and wrestle with the necessary emotions of shock, anger, despair and shame. May we not shy away from hard truths as we speak with our friends, families, churches and colleagues. May we walk away from complacency and into right relationships of mutuality as we seek to repair and renew this broken world as Jesus’ ambassadors. May we recognize that our liberation is bound together—that we cannot be free until all are free. May we speak up and show up—not just on September 30, but every day of the year. May we demand that all the 94 Calls to Action and the 231 Calls for Justice be implemented.

Danny left us with this question: “Who do I need to be, given what I now know?” May we seek to walk in a good way, both in word and deed.

We encourage you to read and wrestle with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action, as well as the 231 Calls for Justice from the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Inquiry. https://nctr.ca/records/reports/ https://www.mmiwg-ffada.ca/final-report/ 