The Long Hard Road to Reconciliation: A Canadian Problem

By Rev Yme Woensdregt, Incumbent, Christ Church Anglican, Cranbrook BC


This has been an historic week in Canada. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) released its report after 6 years of hard work. They listened to the heart–breaking stories of survivors of residential schools as they recounted how their families had been torn apart, as children were removed from their homes and sent to residential schools, as they suffered physical, emotional and sexual abuse. They were painful and horrific stories about a systematic attempt to “beat the Indian out of us” and “make us into little copies of white people.”
Justice Murray Sinclair, the Chair of the TRC, described this shameful episode in Canadian history as “cultural genocide”. He noted that any who would engage in these horrific activities today would be subject to prosecution at the World Court.
The goal of the Commission is to repair the relationship between aboriginal people and the rest of Canada. This is not an aboriginal problem. It is a Canadian problem, and the TRC noted that Canada needs to move from “apology to action” if reconciliation with Aboriginal Peoples is to succeed.
The final report of the TRC includes 94 recommendations for change in policies, programs and the “way we talk to, and about, each other.” In a brief video about what he means by reconciliation, Justice Sinclair notes, “Seven generations of children went through the residential schools, and each of the children in those generations were told that their lives were not as good as the lives of the non–aboriginal people of this country. They were told that their languages, their cultures were irrelevant, that their ancestors and their people were heathen and uncivilized and they were told that they needed to give up that way of life and come to a different way of living. Non–aboriginal children were being told the same thing about the aboriginal people.
“We need to change that. It was the educational system that contributed to this problem in this country, and it is the educational system that’s going to help us get away from this. We need to look at the way that we educate children; we need to look at the way we educate ourselves; we need to look at what our textbooks say about aboriginal people; we need to look at what it is that aboriginal people are allowed to say within the educational system about their own histories.”
It will take lots of time and lots of work. The road to reconciliation is long and painful, and fraught with difficulties.
The recommendations include the creation of a National Centre and Council for Truth and Reconciliation, as well as asking the government to draft new and revised legislation for child welfare, education, health care, and aboriginal languages (including an Aboriginal Languages Act which will preserve and promote aboriginal languages).
Representatives of the churches who ran the state–sponsored schools were present. They include the Anglican Church of Canada, the Presbyterian Church in Canada, the Roman Catholic Church, the United Church of Canada and the Jesuits of English Canada.
In their response, they noted that “Indian Residential Schools, in policy and in practice, were an assault on Indigenous families, culture, language and spiritual traditions, and that great harm was done. We continue to acknowledge and regret our part in that legacy. Those harmed were children, vulnerable, far from their families and communities. The sexual, physical, and emotional abuse they suffered is well-documented.”
The churches have made a public commitment to pursue reconciliation. “We are committed to respect Indigenous spiritual traditions in their own right. As individual churches and in shared interfaith and ecumenical initiatives—for example through Kairos, through interfaith groups, and
through the Canadian Council of Churches—we will continue to foster learning about and awareness of the reality and legacy of the residential schools, the negative impact of such past teachings as the Doctrine of Discovery, and the new ways forward found in places, such as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. We will continue our commitment to financial support for community-controlled initiatives in healing, language and cultural revitalization, education and relationship-building, and self–determination.
My hope and prayer is that we can begin to foster some of these actions here in Cranbrook. This is a Canadian issue. This is an issue for Cranbrook.
In the closing words of the prayer “Remembering the Children” written in 2008 as the TRC began its work, “Great Creator God who desires that all creation live in harmony and peace, Remembering the Children we dare to dream of a Path of Reconciliation where apology from the heart leads to healing of the heart and the chance of restoring the circle, where justice walks with all, where respect leads to true partnership, where the power to change comes from each heart. Hear our prayer of hope, and guide this country of Canada on a new and different path.
May it be so.

Reaching Out to Form a Larger Community

By Rev. Yme Woensdregt

Last Saturday, on one of those remarkably beautiful days we get, I was delighted to sit with representatives from a couple of other churches in town at a table in Rotary Park. We were there as part of the Cranbrook PRIDE celebration and for three hours we talked with people, listening to them, sharing with them our sense of a God whose essence is love and who welcomes all people, regardless of race, age, gender, wealth, size, or sexual orientation.
The most remarkable thing about the day for me was those people who came to our table and told us how important it was that we were there. They were glad to see a spiritual presence which doesn’t judge or condemn but welcomes all people as valued and valuable children of God. My heart swelled with gratitude at those words.
Half a world away on the same day, a momentous referendum was being held in Ireland, where some 62% of the people of Ireland voted to change the Irish constitution to allow gay and lesbian couples to marry.
That is cause for celebration. There is already far too much vengeance and violence in our world against those who are different. The outcome of this referendum points to a new possibility of living together with compassion. It was heartening to see a fairly conservative society accept that gay rights are human rights, and that all people should have these rights as a matter of course.
The vote means that a marriage between two people of the same sex will have the same status under the Irish constitution as a marriage between a man and a woman. Gay and lesbian couples will be recognized as a family and be entitled to constitutional protection for families.
Civil partnerships for same–sex couples have been legal in Ireland since 2010. It gave couples legal protection, but that protection could be taken away by the government. That has all changed now, since the Irish constitution can only be changed by a public referendum. These rights can only be removed by another popular vote.
I was heartened to hear Diarmuid Martin, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Dublin and one of Ireland’s most senior Roman Catholic clerics, say that the “Church in Ireland needs to reconnect with young people. We [the Church] have to stop and take a reality check, not move into a denial of the realities.”
It signals a new openness on the part of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. It’s the same kind of openness which we have seen in the way Pope Francis has conducted himself ever since his election.
I recognize that there are people who disagree with me. Particularly, I recognize that there are faithful Christians for whom this is the wrong step to take. Many of them live by the slogan, “The Bible says it; I believe it; that settles it!”
Unfortunately, it’s not quite that easy. The reality is that there is not a single person on earth who lives entirely by what the Bible says. Not a single one of us!
We don’t stone our children when they curse us (Leviticus 20:9). Some of us eat our meat medium rare, or rare, which clearly violates the command not to eat the blood of any creature (Leviticus 17:14). Most of us don’t worry if we shop on the Sabbath (which, of course, is Saturday in the Old Testament). We no longer keep slaves, even though the Bible condones it. We don’t prevent handicapped people from coming to church or approaching God, even though the Bible forbids it (Leviticus 21:17–21). The list goes on and on.
The reality is that none of us follows the Bible literally. Not a single one of us.
There are some, however, who take a very few verses from the Bible out of context and use them as battering rams against gay and lesbian people. They believe homosexuality is wrong; they believe it is unnatural, and so they will use anything they can find to condemn the LGBTQ community.
Let me suggest that the heart of Biblical teaching is found in these simple words: Love God with all that you are. Love your neighbour as yourself. I think that God is always doing something new in the world, creating and recreating, making life more whole, more joyful, more just.
To love our neighbour doesn’t mean we always have to agree with each other. But it does mean that we have to treat each other with respect, compassion and grace. It is time, as Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said, for the church to stop and take a reality check. It is time for us to reach out in love to all people.

Rev Dr Yme Woensdregt is Incumbent at Christ Church Anglican in Cranbrook British Columbia

The Power and Failure of “Shoulds”

By Rev. Yme Woensdregt

I am a hard–core reader. I read for my work. I read fiction at meal times and bedtime. I even have a book in the car—just in case. I love suspense and mystery novels; they draw me into other worlds for a short while.
I recently picked up the latest novel by Ted Dekker, entitled, “A.D. 30”. It tells the story of Maviah, the outcast daughter of a powerful Bedu sheikh. Born out of wedlock and sold as a slave in Egypt, she eventually she finds her way back home to Arabia and then on to Palestine, where she meets a man named Yeshua—the Jewish name of the one we know as Jesus.
I’m not going to say any more about the novel, so no spoiler alerts are necessary. The characters were sympathetic and believable, the story was tight, and the historical research was accurate.
What has given me pause to reflect is a short essay by Dekker at the beginning of the book, “My Journey to A.D. 30”. Dekker tells us that he grew up as “the son of missionaries who left everything in the west to take the good news to a tribe of cannibals in Indonesia. They were heroes in all respects and taught me many wonderful things, not least among them all the virtues and values of the Christian life. What a beautiful example they showed me.”
So far, so good.
But then Dekker narrates a story in which he gradually began to feel like a failure. His Christian faith seemed … somehow less than what he thought it should be. He writes,
“As I grew older, all the polished answers I memorized in Sunday school seemed to fail me on one level or another, sometimes quite spectacularly. I begin to see cracks in what had once seemed so simple.
“I was supposed to have special powers to love others and turn the other cheek and refrain from gossip and not judge. I was supposed to be a shining example, known by the world for my extravagant love, grace, and power in all respects. And yet, while I heard the rhetoric of others, I didn’t seem to have these powers myself.
“During my teens, I was sure that it was uniquely my fault—I didn’t have enough faith, I needed to try harder and do better. Others seem to have it all together, but I was a failure.
“Can you relate?
“Then I began to notice that everyone seemed to be in the same boat, beginning with those I knew the best. When my relationships challenged all of my notions of love, when disease came close to home, when friends turned on me, when I struggle to pay my bills, when life sucked me dry, I began to wonder where all the power to live life more abundantly had gone. Then I began to question whether or not it has ever really been there in the first place. Perhaps that’s why I couldn’t measure up.
“So I pressed in harder with the hope of discovering God’s love. But I still couldn’t measure up.
“And when I couldn’t measure up, I began to see with perfect clarity that those who claimed to live holy lives were just like me and only lied to themselves—a fact that was apparent to everyone but them…”
My first thought after reading those paragraphs was, “How sad! How utterly, unbearably sad.”
I remember as a child growing up in a church where the same kind of completely unrealistic expectations were laid on people. The language of this church, and others like it (such as
Dekker’s) was filled with “shoulds” when the reality of most of our lives is that we can’t. “Shoulds” just make us feel guiltier, more like a failure. “Shoulds” just add to the already heavy burdens so many of us bear. Our best intentions are never good enough.
I am relieved and glad that I have found another way. More accurately, I am relieved and glad that another way has found me.
The Christian way is not about “shoulds.” It never has been. To think this way is to turn Christian faith into a religion with rules and beliefs and a narrowly defined way.
But Jesus never came to do that. Jesus—Yeshua—pointed us to a relationship with a loving and compassionate God who sets us free so that we might live a more abundant life.
One of the church’s earliest leaders, Augustine, once said “Love God, and do as you please.” It was echoed by Martin Luther many centuries later. The profound truth of this is that as we love God, we will also love what God loves.
It’s a much freer way of living than a life of “shoulds” ever could be.

Rev Dr Yme Woensdregt is the Incumbent at Christ Church Anglican in Cranbrook BC

Finding God in the Park

By Rev. Yme Woensdregt


I recently read a wonderful little story online. Abe was a fiercely independent, 85–year–old man. After a mild stroke, however, his son insisted he move in with him. Abe missed going to the park near his old apartment. One Saturday he set out to find it.

He became disoriented and asked a young boy named Timmy where the park was. Timmy said he’d like to take him there, but he didn’t have time because he was looking for God. He said he needed to talk to God about why his parents were getting a divorce.

“Maybe God’s in the park,” the old man said. “I’d like to talk to God, too, about why he’s made me useless.” So they set off together to find God.

At the park, Timmy began to cry about the divorce, and Abe lovingly held his face in both hands and looked him straight in the eyes. “Timmy, I don’t know why bad things happen, but I know it wasn’t because of you. I know you’re a good boy and your parents love you and you’ll be okay.”

Timmy gave Abe a big hug and said, “I’m so glad I met you. Thanks. I think I can go now.”

From across the street, Timmy’s mother saw them hug and approached her son in a worried voice. 

“Who was that old man?”

“I think he’s God,” Timmy said.

“Did he say that?” she demanded.
“No, but when he touched me and told me I’m going to be okay, I felt really better. Only God can do that.”

When Abe got home, his son asked in a scolding voice, “Where were you?”

“I was in the park with God.”

“Really? What makes you think you were with God?”

“Because He sent me a boy who needed me, and when the boy hugged me, I felt God telling me I wasn’t useless anymore.”

Whenever I hear a story like this, I’m reminded that God comes to us in many disguises. In 1972, Presbyterian professor Robert McAfee Brown wrote a wonderful book called “The Pseudonyms of God”. His point was that God speaks to us in many different ways — through human culture and natural events, through interior mystical experiences, and through very public experiences.

In that book, he wrote, “I need more than the resources of Bible, theological tradition, and my own commitments if I am to understand my faith and the world in which it is set; I also need the ethical insights of my secular colleagues, the political and psychological analyses of my friends and foes, and the prophetic jab of nonchurchmen whose degree of commitment so often puts my own to shame.”


We can catch a glimpse of divine reality in many different ways, including the everyday and ordinary moments of each day. Part of our task, then, is to listen, to see deeper into the heart of reality, so that we might see and hear God’s presence in all these ways.

Like Abe and Timmy, we may even learn to find God in the park. I know people like them who are close to God when they’re riding a bike, or climbing mountains, or listening to a piece of music, or finding ourselves lost in a work of art. Celtic spirituality calls such experiences “thin places”.

It’s a wonderful concept. It leads us to know the holiness of God that rests all around us. It helps us see God’s holiness in other people, and especially those who are different from us.

So what do you say? Want to go the park?

Rev Dr Yme Woensdregt is Incumbent at Christ Church Anglican in Cranbrook BC

Finishing the Story of Easter

By Rev. Yme Woensdregt

For many of us, Easter is a time of chocolates and bunnies, a time to welcome the returning warmth of spring. We feel the warmth of the sun on our skin and our thoughts turn naturally to spring projects. We put away most—but not quite all—of our winter clothing, and we watch with pleasure as the green buds on the trees turn to leaves and flowers begin to spring once again from the earth after its long winter nap.
For some of us, it’s a time to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus in church. We sing our alleluias and rejoice that “Christ the Lord is ris’n today.” Easter is a day for joy and celebration and thanksgiving for the renewal of life.
But it was not always so.
It strikes me this year in a new way that the first Easter was marked more by fear and confusion and pain than by joy and celebration. All four gospels in the Bible tell stories about a group of disciples who can’t make sense of what is happening.
There are some common threads in the stories: some of the women who had followed Jesus come to the tomb early Sunday morning after the Sabbath had ended. They discover that the stone sealing the entrance of the tomb has been rolled away and the tomb is empty. They don’t find the body of their friend and teacher. In each story, an angel announces that Jesus has risen.
Beyond those common threads, the stories differ in marked ways.
The last gospel to be written was John. It comes from around 95–105, about 65 years after Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. John tells a touching story about Mary’s pain. She weeps outside the tomb, wandering in a daze of confusion. When the risen Jesus stands near her, she doesn’t recognize him—until he calls her by name. Then she runs back to tell the others, “I have seen the Lord.”
Luke and Matthew were written about a decade earlier. In Luke’s story, the angel reminds the women that Jesus had told them he would rise again. “They remembered his words,” ran back and “told all this to the eleven and to all the rest.” The apostles didn’t believe them; “these words seemed to them an idle tale.” You can’t believe the women, after all.
Luke continues with a story of a couple of disciples (probably a husband and wife) who travel home to Emmaus the same day, only to encounter the risen Jesus when he breaks bread with them after they’ve reached home.
Matthew tells a story about an earthquake, which explains how the stone had rolled away from the mouth of the tomb. He mentions that Pilate had posted a guard—a story which was likely told to counter later rumours that the disciples had stolen the body and spread a lie that Jesus had been raised.
I want to focus on Mark’s story. Mark was almost certainly the earliest gospel, written sometime around the year 70.
Mark’s gospel ends very strangely. The women come to the tomb and find it empty. They see “young man dressed in a white robe” who tells them that Jesus has risen. “Hh is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you.”
You would think the story would end with the women returning to the disciples to tell this this news. But it doesn’t. The story ends this way: “And they went out and fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come upon them; and they said nothing to any one, for they were afraid.”
Full stop.
Later copyists thought this was a very strange way to end the story. They might have thought that the ending was lost, or damaged in some way. At least a couple of scribes added their own endings, in which Jesus appeared to the disciples. Modern Bibles include these as a “shorter ending” and a “longer ending.” These endings, however, only appear in very late manuscripts. The earliest manuscripts end with the women being silent and fearful.
I suspect that Mark knew exactly what he was doing, and that he ends the gospel this way deliberately. At the very beginning of his gospel, Mark tells us that his story is “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ.” This whole story is the beginning of the good news. Mark’s open–ended conclusion invites us into the story.
The resurrection of Jesus isn’t a conclusion. It’s an invitation. We are invited to continue the story of what God is doing in the world. The story which Mark begins continues in us, in all the generations who have come after him, in all those people who have been inspired to continue the story of God’s healing love.
The story of Easter life continues in us as we reach out in love and compassion to the world. I wish for you a happy Easter, and many opportunities to be loving and compassionate people.

Rev Dr Yme Woensdregt is the Incumbent at Christ Church (Anglican) in Cranbrook BC

CrossWalking: Showing our Love for the City

By Rev. Yme Woensdregt

Next Friday, Christians from different churches in Cranbrook will join together for the eleventh annual Good Friday CrossWalk.

 It’s a spiritual pilgrimage through the streets of downtown Cranbrook. This is worship in the streets! We pray for our city, its leaders and all who live here. We pray for our nation and for the world.

The CrossWalk begins at 10 am on Good Friday at the Clock Tower. From there, we will carry a cross through the downtown core of the city and stop at several locations.

At each stop, we read a passage from Scripture and we pray together.
Our prayers will embrace the city and its people, leaders and governments around the world, our legal system, our health care system, caregivers of all sorts and those who need to be surrounded with prayer and compassion and grace.

We pray for the victims and perpetrators of war and hatred. We pray for all whose lives need to be held up in the light of God’s love. We end with prayers for the churches and other faith groups, all who seek to live with peace and compassion in the world. We pray that we might learn to live and work together with compassion for the good of all people.

Why do we do this?

We do it as a faithful witness to the grace and compassion of God. We hold up our city in prayer so that God’s love might surround and embrace us all with healing grace. We journey together, bearing witness to Jesus who comes to our world with a different vision of what a whole and healthy life looks like.

Cross Walk 2014 

God’s vision for the world is of a community of compassion and companionship. It’s a world where power resides in service and self–giving love, not in might and coercion. It’s a vision of healing and restoration so that all people may live together in peace with justice.

For faithful Christians, the cross is about an alternative vision of what life could be like. Jesus didn’t die on the cross primarily so that we could get to heaven. Rather, he was executed by the state because his vision of life was so radically different that he was seen as a threat. In the cross, we see the depth of Jesus’ passion for a world based on a radical equality among all people. We see the power of God’s love, which holds us up even in the midst of the most painful suffering.

In our CrossWalk, in our prayers, we give voice to that vision. We don’t ask God to come crashing into our world to set everything right. Rather, as we pray, we make a fresh commitment to live by the gospel values of compassion, peace, justice and wholeness. We make a public act of witness that we walk with Jesus, that we share that same vision of a life made whole and new.

Canadian theologian Douglas John Hall talks about prayer as “learning to see the world through God’s eyes.” As we pray, we learn to view the world with compassion and grace. We learn to seek justice for all people. We seek to live on this earth as responsible and faithful people who care for one another and who care for the earth as well.

CrossWalking is one way in which we renew our commitment to walk in the way of Jesus. It is a way that leads to a cross, since walking this path faithfully will bring us into conflict with the world and its values.

God invites us to be partners in what John Dominic Crossan calls “God’s great cleanup of the world”. We work in partnership with God, so that the gospel values of love and compassion and justice might triumph in our own lives and in the world.

God has a deep, abiding and profound love for the world. Our prayers for the city and all its people, for peace and justice, for hope and healing, reflects our longing to participate in God’s passionate love affair with the world.

As we journey through the city, we feel the burden of the cross we carry. At the same time, we experience the reality of its liberating power. We renew our commitment to the crucified and risen Christ as we commit ourselves to serve Cranbrook in love.

Join us on Good Friday, April 3. We begin at the Clock Tower at 10 am. I invite you to journey with us. Come pray with us. Come show your love for Cranbrook. Come carry the cross with us. Come and give witness to an alternative vision of what life could be like.

Rev Dr Yme Woensdregt is the Incumbent at Christ Church Anglican in Cranbrook BC

Killing the World for the Sake of Convenience

By Rev. Yme Woensdregt

Did you catch the tidbit on the news the other day that the inventor of the Keurig coffee system regrets ever doing so? When he invented the system, John Sylvan thought there might be a limited appeal to people who would normally go Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts or other coffee chains in the morning, because now they could get a cup of coffee at work that was cheaper, faster, and no fuss. “That would make it environmentally neutral, because you wouldn’t have those Starbucks cups everywhere,” he said in an interview.
He is mystified that the system has become as popular as it has. In fact, because he never thought it would amount to much, he sold the rights to the system for a paltry $50,000 in 1997.
Since then, however, Keurig Green Mountain (the parent company) has taken off. It’s not just being used in offices, but in homes and other places as well. People seemingly can’t get enough of the stuff. Sales figures show that 1 in 3 homes in the US have a Keurig machine. In 2014, Keurig sold over 9 billion K–cups—the 1–serving coffee pods you pop in the machine to make a single cup of coffee. Since 2008, sales have increased 6–fold.
People have fallen in love with this system for two main reasons. One of the reasons, as someone said to me last week when I asked is, “It just tastes so good.” I wouldn’t know about that. I’ve never used the system, but I also find that the coffee I’m able to buy at local retailers also tastes pretty good.
But I suspect that the biggest single reason is the convenience of it. You pick up a single–serving K–cup, pop it into the machine, add water, and presto changeo you have a cup of coffee in almost any flavour you desire.
In a recent interview with The Atlantic, Sylvan says, “I feel bad sometimes I ever did it.” Why? He says it’s not because he’s not sharing in the massive profits of his invention. He regrets it because the K–cups have become an environmental hazard. They are not recyclable or biodegradable, and almost all of them end up in landfills. Sylvan indicates that he never anticipated this scale of waste.
Sylvan is aware of the appeal of the system. “It's like a cigarette for coffee, a single-serve delivery mechanism for an addictive substance.” Each K–cup contains 11 grams of ground coffee, vacuum–sealed in nitrogen to prevent oxidation. At that rate, what you’re buying is standard coffee grounds for around $40 per pound. Pretty expensive coffee!
There are billions of them around. They are everywhere, over 400 varieties of hot drinks made by multiple manufacturers. In 2014, there were enough discarded K–cups to circle the globe 10½ times.
Keurig Green Mountain says it can make a recyclable cup by 2020, but Sylvan disputes this claim. Even if it is possible, that’s still 5 years away, which means we can circle the globe another 53 times with K–cups.
It amazes me how willingly we continue to damage the environment. It would be such a simple thing to stop using these pods. We’d also save some money, since the excellent coffee I buy at a local retailer is less than half the price of these convenient pods.
Sylvan thinks that Keurig users should think hard about the choices they’re making when it comes to a cup of coffee. “From a personal standpoint, it saves 20 seconds of your day,” he told As It Happens. “What's that worth?”
On a related note, do you know about what is being called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? Billions of pounds of plastic garbage are trapped in a great holding pattern twice the size of
Texas in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, held there by currents that draw the garbage in and won’t let it escape. The plastic doesn’t get there on its own … it gets there because we throw it into streams and rivers which make their way to the ocean. On some beaches in Hawaii, the plastic is up to 10 feet thick!
If you want to know more about how our hunger for convenience is killing the planet, there’s a wonderful “mockumentary” on youtube called “The Majestic Plastic Bag”.
We can stop killing the world. There are so many simple little things we can do.
What's it worth to you?

Rev Dr Yme Woensdregt is Incumbent at Christ Church Anglican Cranbrook BC