We had a Teaching House early 2023. April 3-5, we met as Indigenous clergy at the Elk Ridge resort near Montreal Lake First Nation. The people encourage me. As a kid, I was always trying to fit in, trying to be who I thought Canadian society wanted me to be. I was pretty sure that the people did not want me to be First Nations; they wanted me to be something else, something they liked, or what I thought they liked. Maybe this pressure is something everyone feels. I wonder if this is what we call institutional racism. Canada declared war on Indigenous culture and language, but then I joined these efforts to destroy my identity and try to be something pale, opaque with no substance, just be who people wanted me to be. But sitting with my people and listening to the desire to live and be who the Creator made us to be within the Church made me see again the importance of being me. Being who the Creator made us to be is self-determination. I think Indigenous identity, community, and self-determination are all connected.
Maybe because our continuation as a people is threatened by the powers that be, or at least Rupert Ross writes in Dancing with a Ghost, that we wonder about our continuation as a people. I am not sure if this is true for all Indigenous people; I can only determine what I think, and I sometimes I wonder about our future. Perhaps it is only my continuation that I worry about, or maybe it is living in the city that makes me wonder what will happen. Whatever the case, being with Indigenous clergy for those days made me believe in a future that the Creator has made for us. It reminded me of who we are and that our territories are part of a good land. And hearing prayers in my grandfather's language was, to borrow a phrase from Neil McLeod's Cree Narrative Memory, like "hearing the land welcome me home."
