Never again

“Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things.”

– Terry Pratchett

When we think of the atrocities of WWII - the concentration camps, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the internment camps where Japanese North Americans were imprisoned - two words come to mind: NEVER AGAIN. I was reading yesterday of an atrocity that spanned several decades in our own country, in the words of those who had survived it: the First Nations people. In the residential school system, generations of First Nations children were ripped from their parents (some of them without the parents' knowledge or consent, some at the threat of their parents going to jail) and treated shamefully, in an effort to assimilate them ... to make them into white people.

What if some military or political power were to give police the authority to come into your home, take you and the things you hold dear from it, and give you to prison wardens who stripped you down, called you filthy, washed your hair with kerosene, shaved your head, took your clothes and gave you ill-fitting shoes, burned all of your sports equipment, took your phone, your musical instruments, your credit cards, your jewelry, everything that distinguished you as a person, gave you a number and called you by nothing but that number, fed you substandard food and made you eat it, and beat you if you spoke your mother tongue? What if this went on for years before you were allowed to return to your family? The equivalent of that is only the beginning of what happened to these wonderful, peaceful people.

Reading the accounts of what happened in the victims' own words powerfully reminded me of reading Viktor Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning (you can look it up and read it free online) where he described what he went through in the Nazi death camps upon arrival, and then on a daily basis.  He spoke for millions who could not, whose voices were silenced.  He helped to expose the atrocities motivated by fear and hatred.

Isn't that what racism is: fear and hatred gone wild?  That it happened here ... that the spirits of those children were sucked out of them - their way of life and even their own language called demonic - this is Canada's shame. 

I'm sorry, folks, but an official apology from the government, nearly a hundred years after the fact, just does not make up for the thousands of lives, families and communities that were destroyed, the very fabric of their way of life (family, connection with nature, traditions) unraveled.  It does not give the stolen spirits of those people back to them.  It does not restore their lost heritage, nor the way of life they were brainwashed into rejecting. 

 

Photo "Dreamcatcher" courtesy
of Serge Bertasius Photography at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

The nightmare isn't over for First Nations people just because some white man in a three-piece suit said, "Sorry." The way we silence the monsters is to let people know how horrific those attitudes are: the ones that led to daily spiritual and cultural atrocities. The attitude that "white makes right." The attitude that "Christian values are the only ones worth espousing" and "these people are savages."  And oh, my favourite (not): "It's for their own good." It was wrong. It was wrong then and it's still wrong now.

There, I've said it.  I'm a white, Christian, "civilized" (whatever that means) person and I KNOW that what happened was wrong.  I KNOW that every day for multiple generations, there are adults who wake in cold sweats from nightmares about "that place." There are grown men who question every move they make: am I allowed to sit here, am I allowed to go to that place, am I allowed to talk to this person?

Knowledge is power.  I freely admit that I was ignorant.  I didn't know that I didn't know.  And although it was painful, I had to educate myself.  I went to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada website and I started reading one of the many documents available there  (link).  I confess that I was only able to get through half of it - it was very emotional for me.  The language is easy enough to understand, but the stories themselves - first of how life used to be, and then of how life changed forever - broke my heart. 

Perhaps the reason that some Canadians have a hard time with immigrants coming into our country is because our own ancestors carried out the very thing that they fear the newcomers will do: destroy our way of life, take over our land and make us into second-class citizens.  The difference is that we whites hold a position of privilege ... and we therefore have a responsibility to use our power for good.  Not evil.

Never again.

Let it happen

When I was younger, I had flashbacks a LOT of things that happened to me when I was a child. Horrible images, re-experiencing feelings and thoughts I thought I had buried far beneath. I was determined not to ever let ANYone get the better part of me.  Ever.  Again.  

I still have them ... just not quite as often.

But I'm starting to have flash-forwards.  Based on some more recent things that have happened.  Only this time I wasn't the victim (even though at the time I felt like I was ... a perpetual state not that long ago).  I was victimizing my kids by trying to control their behavior - through intimidation or manipulation.  

Because I'm a Christian, and because I wanted them to be as well, I would try to control their decisions by 'hinting' at the idea that they might be sinning and hurting themselves (and me, obviously) as a result.  Or I'd send them a poem that made them feel guilty for the way they were treating me (or each other.)  Or I'd quote Scripture to them.  Or ... well, you get the picture.  

The problem with that picture was that it had the opposite effect of the one I wanted.  Every time.  In fact, my kids coined a word for my behavior.  

Christianazi. 

Ouch.  That hurt.  

Still, I didn't get it. Even when they told me point blank!!  I took it as my children "persecuting" me because I was "standing up for what was right."  Or trying to "raise them right." Or "protecting" them. 

Found this photo at THIS SITE

Nothing could have been further from the truth. What I was really doing was causing them to reject me and turn their backs on everything I stood for (including Christianity, if it made me into a religious control freak) and shut me out of their lives.  I was doing it because I couldn't stand not being in control of something... ANYthing.

They hated being treated that way - as if their wishes and feelings didn't matter, just mine.  They withdrew from me and didn't confide in me (for fear of being judged/jumped all over). And they were right.  I could dress it up and I did for years: I was trying to spare them the heartache I had known by being "out there" and getting some pretty hard knocks. But I'd been unaware that whole time of something important.  In trying to protect them, I also shielded them from experiencing the consequences of their own actions.  I was hurting them, not helping them.

As part of my recovery from this addiction to controlling others, I realized one day not only what I was doing to them, but to myself for putting me through the pressure of taking responsibility for their actions, and yes, even to God for keeping my kids away from the opportunity to find Him for themselves (something He wants, very much!) ... exactly by having this "you gotta do it my [or the Bible's] way" attitude. 

I took another look at the teachings of Jesus - and discovered something rather alarming - -  actually, earth-shattering to someone who had built her whole life on trying to "make it happen" in other people's lives.  Jesus only told people who were following Him to act a certain way.  He told His followers to NOT expect other people to toe the line ... because only God can change a heart and give the motivation and the power to live life His way.

It wasn't my job to change them, protect them, rescue them, make them choose the right thing.  I was robbing that away from God!  And the result?  They ran in the opposite direction!

Can you blame them?  Nobody wants to be made to feel lower than a snake's underbelly just for having a different opinion or take on things than someone else. 

Huh.  So all of my wrangling, tears, temper tantrums, and guilt-trips were for nothing. I was pushing my loved ones away from the very thing I most wanted them to embrace!!  

In one of the hardest life-changes I've ever had to make, I decided to let go and let God have my kids (and my husband, for that matter!) and to TRUST HIM to do in them what I could never do. To stop being Jimminy Cricket and stop fearing what might happen to them if they didn't follow my advice ... and LET IT HAPPEN.  LET them walk away if they needed to.  LET them make a choice I wouldn't make.  LET them experience the consequences of said choice.  No guilt trips.  NO trying to manipulate the outcome.  

Yes, be a safe place to land. YES, forgive.  But LET them be who they were, even if it wasn't what I wanted.  LET them have their own opinions on things even if those opinions were diametrically opposed to mine. They were nearly adults at the time ... I was treating them like they were still six years old.  Letting go and learning to let it happen was one of the hardest, the most frightening, and the most rewarding things I ever did. 

Today, my kids still make choices I don't necessarily like all the time.  I'm learning to let them know what I think without telling them what THEY should think.  I'm learning to enjoy them and accept them for the way they are, and not try to change them.  They have slowly started to open up to me, like flower-buds in their proper season.  I've been surprised at the amazing variety of colours I see in them, colours that I never would have dreamed were there.  

And there is something else now in our house which was so rare before, and which is happening more and more often as I learn to let go and allow life to unfold for them without trying to force it.  It's like music to me.

It's the strangest and most beautiful sound.

Laughter.

Owning up

I was talking to a dear friend this evening who, nearly six months ago, was badly hurt by someone he trusted lying to him, concealing the truth from him about something.  The person never apologized when it happened, and for the last five months has been justifying his behavior, saying he didn't do anything wrong.  

Suddenly, a few days ago, he decided to apologize.  But his apology was way more about explaining why he did what he did, than in taking any responsibility for hurting my friend.  He said, in essence, the same old thing: that he didn't feel like he'd done anything wrong - and he implied that my friend was too sensitive and over-reacting.  

That's not an apology.  That's just more of the same self-justification that has been going on for months.  

An apology goes like this:  "What I did hurt you.  I am sorry.  I was wrong."  

Period. 

Source of this photo

Whether the hurt was intentional or not is immaterial.  The phrase, "I didn't mean to hurt you" is the wrong thing to say when apologizing; it just is, no matter what a person is used to.  

Think of it this way - an example "off the top of my head."  Imagine (for the sake of the exercise) that I ask you to put your hand on a table, with your fingers spread.  You do so.  Then I start taking the butt end of a cutlery knife and hitting the table with it, aiming for the space between your fingers, first between the first and second, then the second and third, and so forth, and then back again. Faster and faster, back and forth.  In doing that, I miss and I hit the top of your finger with the heavy steel butt of the knife.  It hurts.  You draw your hand back and say ouch.  

Now - when I immediately say that I didn't mean to hurt you, does that make you feel better?

No.  You've still been hurt. And I'm the one who did it! Whether I meant to do it or not is not important. The fact that I did it IS.  The appropriate thing for me to say is "Oh - I'm terribly sorry! I shouldn't have even tried that!"  No justification, no excuse, no rationalization.  Just "I was wrong.  I'm sorry!" 

Now let's say I don't apologize and wait until two weeks later to do it, and then when I do, I tell you why I was doing such a dangerous stunt in the first place instead of just telling you that I'm sorry that I hurt you. Does that apology hold water? 

No way!!

Taking responsibility takes guts.  It really requires courage to own up and not try to protect ourselves when admitting that we wronged someone.  Justifying ourselves gives the message that the other person's pain doesn't matter, that we're more concerned about ourselves than we are about the other person. Besides, you can't do very much good if you're covering your butt all the time.  

Did my friend take the "apology" he received seriously?  
Of course not.  He's not stupid.

Someday I hope that this person "gets it" and is truly repentant for the hurt he caused - and that he owns up and says that he's sorry.  But by then, I just wonder if it might be too little, too late. 

No tears in Heaven - right?

Well, not exactly.

The Bible says, "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." So there must be tears ... in Heaven.

Why? What would there be to cry about in a perfect place where there is no more sickness, no more death?

Between the Rapture of the church and the physical return of Jesus to Earth, there's this little-preached-about thing called the Bema Seat - or the Judgment Seat of Christ. It's when we Christians will find out the true value of everything we have done (and not done) as Christians. We may even be surprised at who we see there!! (if we even notice the presence of anyone else at all...)

1 Corinthians 3:11-15 talks about this time of reckoning. It is NOT a time when we will find out who goes to Heaven and who goes to hell. This is "for Christians only."

I believe it will be a time when many of us - I daresay most of us - will be very surprised at what awaits us. Those of us who think we have done well in this life may find that our reward was all down here in the praise of men or even in the satisfaction of doing good deeds ("it feels good to be good"), and therefore, little or no reward may await us. Those of us who don't think our lives have amounted to much on Earth may discover that our little dark corner where we have slogged away in obscurity, illuminates with far more lavish reward than we ever dreamed imaginable. The secret, the determining factor, is in the fire of God: the purifying, motive-revealing fire. Please understand that it is not PEOPLE who will pass through the fire, but WORKS. Our sins, past, present, and future, have already been placed under the Blood. There will be no "confession", no "repentance", no "redemption" needed. He will show us what really was, and what could have been. There will be nothing left for us but to accept His perfect plan for us, His decision on what rewards await us for the rest of eternity. Read with me the words of Paul, inspired by the Spirit of God:
¹¹For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
¹²Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw,
¹³each man's work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man's work.
¹⁴If any man's work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward.
¹⁵If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.
(NASV)

What a day that will be! There are probably going to be lots of us who weep in remorse because of lost opportunities to reach out, wasted efforts in religious pursuits, and impure, selfish motives in what we may have considered "our ministry." There will be no escaping the truth, no rationalizing our behavior. "All things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do." (Heb 4:13)

Before we succumb to the temptation to say to ourselves, "Well then,... we'd better get busy!" that is not what this is about. This is about - as it always is with God - relationship. It's about being so busy doing the work of the Lord that we forget the Lord of the work. It's about Jesus waiting by the hearth of our lives, waiting to meet with us and spend time with us by the fireplace, enter our innermost dark corners and illuminate and warm them with Himself, free us from the chains of our pasts and cause us to realize how deeply He loves us. Once we realize this, our natural spiritual response will be to love Him back! That love will naturally spill over into our daily lives and touch the people with whom we come in contact - just like a beam of light pierces through the darkness. We will make a difference - for Him. Through Him. Because of Him.

Not for reward. Not for crowns or jewels ... or anything else except the constant awareness of His presence inside of us, transforming us, loving and working through us.

He is desperate for us to let Him know us, to let Him into our innermost places and accept His love and His grace to live every day in His anointing. Not "for the rest of my life." Just every day, while it is still called Today.

So the question that tells me if I am living progressively in that lifestyle is: am I looking forward to the Bema - the Judgment Seat of Christ - or not?

Today

A few minutes ago I was thinking of a song I learned as a child.

Today, while the blossoms still cling to the vine,
I'll taste your strawberries, I'll drink your sweet wine...
A million tomorrows shall all pass away
'ere I forget all the joy that is mine - today. (Randy Sparks - sung by John Denver)

The song itself is about not caring what tomorrow brings, just living in the pleasure of the moment. Many people would find that offensive. Even sinful.

I think there is wisdom in living each day as it comes. That way, without regrets about the past and worry about the future, there is only today - enough strength, enough wisdom, enough courage for this one day, dispensed as we need it. Another song that comes to my mind says,
We have this moment to hold in our hand and to touch
as it slips through our fingers like sand -
Yesterday's gone and tomorrow may never come,
but we have this moment, today. (Gaither Vocal Band)

I spent decades filled with regret over the things in the past I could do nothing about - things which happened to me without my consent, and some of which I had a part in creating. I spent the same time worrying about tomorrow, worrying about what people thought of me, what they meant by what they said to me, whether I would ever have any real friends. I wasted that much energy - in remorse, in anxiety - that I didn't have enough energy for the 24-hour period I was experiencing. When I first started to rid myself of the chains of the past and start living in today, it was uncomfortable because it was so new. However, as I continued, I noticed that my enjoyment of the moment was enhanced, I had more energy to handle the things that were happening now - and I was happier. Go figure.

It's a powerful word - the word "now."
It's where God, who is eternal, lives.