National Aboriginal Day

The backdrop of Eternity

Wednesday, June 21, 2017

7:56 AM

It is National Aboriginal Day. The people who make up Canada are going to celebrate the contribution of Indigenous people. CBC news app had a feature “I am Indigenous” that I scrolled through this morning. They had the pictures of mostly young people, who will be the face of our hope, but few of our elders, the keepers of our collective memory.

 Funny, our lives are bit like time as described by ancient theologian Augustine. Time exists as hope (future) and memory (the past) and the fleeting present - and behind all the backdrop of eternity. Eternity, something that seems to be in the minds or understanding of everyone that I have met. I wonder if this is the hope of the whole world - to see our existence continue in some fashion.

I remember reading the story of a solitary Cree hunter, thinking he was about to die, hung his rifle up, because it was a good rifle[1], but also, I wonder, if he was  thinking that someone else might continue to use it or take it for a time.

Or the idea of children and descendants, that the line of our people will not end with just me. This perhaps drives the idea in the Hebrew Scriptures of the prayer and desire for children. The prayer that our people will continue somehow.

The idea of children - the hope of the future - the face of elders - the memory of our people - the backdrop of eternity and the fleeting present. Our lives in time - an enigma on this National Aboriginal Day.

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[1] Richard J. Preston, Cree Narrative : Expressing the Personal Meanings of Events, 2nd ed., Carleton Library Series (Montreal ; Ithaca: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2002), 177.