I promised you a blog about dinner with the Queen, and am indebted to a new friend, the Moderator of The Presbyterian Church in Canada, the Rev. Dr. Herb Gale, who will help me enormously with this account. Herb paints a great picture of the evening we shared with her Majesty at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto on July 5th. There’s no need for me to try to do any better than Herb has done with details of the evening.
Back in Winnipeg for the 2010 World Religious Leaders’ G8 Summit, I’m reminded of Nellie McClung. As Doug Martindale welcomed us here on behalf of the government of Manitoba, he told us about a new statue of Nellie that was just unveiled last week at the legislative buildings.
Wednesday’s Sharing Circle at the TRC (see earlier blog) also invited a former teacher to give voice to her difficult experience in a school in Saskatchewan. She arrived as a new, young teacher eager and ready for her vocation. Then she saw the dreadful basement room in which she and her students were expected to spend their days.
Bearing witness to truth is a first step toward healing and reconciliation. Facing one another as we speak truth holds the promise that we might truly listen to the depth of our own truth and the depth of others’ truth, that we might hear the cry of our own souls and the cry of others’ souls.
As mentioned in my earlier blog, yesterday I was given the honour of speaking on behalf of The United Church of Canada at the Opening Session of the first national gathering of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, along with TRC Commissioners and other leaders (Aboriginal, government, and church leaders). I began by making clear that I spoke not only for our church as Moderator but also for myself.
This morning I head to Montreal for a weekend of helping United Theological College mark the completion of its Designated Lay Ministry Residential program. Another poignant few days in a week marked by countless and varied 85th anniversary celebrations for The United Church of Canada.
