One of the greatest tragedies of our Canadian history was the legacy of Residential Schools, where families were separated and where children were abused.

 

Families & lives were shattered.

Where the Spirit Lives

 

Where the Spirit Lives impacted me and brought home the tragedy of the ‘residential schools’.

Full Film: http://youtu.be/Os5KqErc7XYdrama film about Aboriginal children in Canada being taken from their tribes to attend residential schools for assimilation into majority culture. Written by Keith Ross Leckie and directed by Bruce Pittman, it aired on CBC Television in 1989.

    ‘where the spirit lives’

The film starred Michelle St. John as Amelia, a young First Nations girl captured and confined to the residential school system of the 1930s.

The system was an attempt to have aboriginal youth to assimilate into the majority European-flicted and Canadian culture. Amelia resists assimilation and plans her escape.

The film’s cast includes Ann-Marie MacDonald and David Hemblen as teachers at the school. Contents 1 Plot2 Cast3 See also4 References5 External links Plot In 1937, a young First Nations girl named Ashtoh-Komi is kidnapped along with several other children from a village as part of a Canadian policy to educate First Nations children and assimilate them into Canadian/British society.

She is taken to a boarding school, where she is forced to adopt Western Euro-centric ways and learn English, often under harsh treatment. One teacher is portrayed as sympathetic and she becomes repelled by the bigotry of others at the school. She offers Ashtoh-Komi help. Forced to take the name Amelia, Ashtoh-Komi determines to hold on to her First Nations identity and encourages her younger sibling to do so as well. She plans their escape.

Cast Michelle St. John – Astoh-Komi/AmeliaClayton Julian – Pita/AbrahamAnn-Marie MacDonald– KathleenRon White – Taggert [1]David Hemblen – Reverend Buckley – Miss Weir

Other Resources on the Era of residential Schools:

http://youtu.be/GXO68LCB8kU Doris PetrieSleeping Children Awake, a 1992 documentary about residential schools We Were Children, a 2012 Canadian documentary about residential schools Our Spirits Don’t Speak English (2008),a documentary film about Native American boarding schools in the United States.

For genocide to happen:

For genocide to happen, there must be certain preconditions. Foremost among them is a national culture that does not place a high value on human life. A totalitarian society, with its assumed superior ideology, is also a precondition for genocidal acts.^[80] In addition, members of the dominant society must perceive their potential victims as less than fully human: as “pagans,” “savages,” “uncouth barbarians,” “unbelievers,” “effete degenerates,” “ritual outlaws,” “racial inferiors,” “class antagonists,” “counterrevolutionaries,” and so on.^[81] In themselves, these conditions are not enough for the perpetrators to commit genocide. * To do that that is, to commit genocide the perpetrators need a strong, centralized authority and bureaucratic organization as well as pathological individuals and criminals. Also required is a campaign of vilification and dehumanization of the victims by the perpetrators, who are usually new states or new regimes attempting to impose conformity to a new ideology and its model of society.^[80M. Hassan Kakar^[82]

One can see clearly that this occurred with the First Nations peoples.

Dan Pelletier, the Program Director for the last program Healing the Nation-One Family At A Time in recognizing what this ministry along with Canadian Heritage was doing to me personally and professionally and that their mandate was to undermine the organization I/we began, stated: “Arlene, they’re treating you like an Indian! Now you know what it’s like.“

Sadly, the First Nations peoples are still at the mercy of government. They are our poorest, their families are still fractured, their wounds are still deep, the addictions to cover-up their collective ‘pain and suffering’ is high, violence and breaking ‘white-man’s laws’ puts them behind bars and keeps too many of them dependent on government.

The number of Aboriginal babies in care is too high and infanticide among them is too high, like with Autumn and Lily. These deaths continue and no one hears about it because government denies them Coroner’s Inquests. They simply conclude that these deaths are Undetermined or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), as was the case with Autumn (Undetermined) and Lily (SIDS) –and the genocide continues…

‘Deep healing’ is required. I do believe most of this ‘at risk’ target group wants this healing but for the most part it is not there. Short-term ‘band-aid’ solutions are not very successful and the ‘powers-to-be’ know this.

Anyone doing great work like the organization the Aboriginal Healing Foundation and The Anchorage are undermined and the genocide continues…

How they undermine these organizations is by sending in their own creating chaos and instability. For example they do it by sending in Aboriginal personnel like Joyce LaPrise who will do their dirty work’, who will ‘sell their soul’, having only their self-interests ‘at heart’, doing whatever to ‘get ahead’ personally being manipulated like they did her ancestors giving them ‘spirits’ – ‘liquor/booze’ for their furs.

Joyce and I got along until her plan went into ‘high-gear’ and she said to me before the first eviction: “What I’m about to do goes against my integrity as a person but I have to do it or I will never get a job anywhere in Canada”. Did she feel manipulated.  Regardless she did it and her integrity went down the drain -and the genocide continues…

Missing and murdered Aboriginal women can not be fully addressed without finding and prosecuting and offering healing to them and their families and more violence and heartache and missing persons continues and the genocide continues…

Trying to turn back the hands of time is not possible but healing deep emotional wounds is.

A rehabilitation program needs to include non-Aboriginal peoples so as to experience truth and reconciliation and healing between all of us.

As a nation we can heal together-hence the program: Healing the Nation-One Family At A Time.

The depth of the emotional wounds and trauma from sexual abuse left many with post-trauma and addictions and ongoing injury to their families, doomed to repeat the past injuries.

I am considering adding the evaluation of the program Healing the Nation-One Family At A Time that The Anchorage ran in the days ahead as Canadian taxpayers should know how wisely their dollars were spent. I can assure you they were spent sparingly and wisely and helped many to heal and move their lives forward.

This program was a success and could be a model for developing another one if funding and support is forthcoming.

One of the project officers (Marita Bray) told me that she thought that the government had it in for me because the program was too successful (for this marginalized, high-risk group).  Question: If there was any truth in that statement could it be possible that the government does not really want to see them heal and be productive. If that’s not true then they’ll support any and all healing programs to assist and empower them and not simply deal with their rage by locking them-up for as long as possible. THAT’S NOT HEALING OUR NATION!

ABORIGINAL CHRISTIANITY THE WAY IT WAS MEANT TO BE…

Tragically, Jesus Christ was seen as ‘white-man’s’ religion and was rejected by so many First Nations/Aboriginal peoples when in fact He was more Aboriginal than white.

Both in skin color and the nomadic way He lived and shared His message of ‘godly living’ and how we can have eternal life. In the early 90’s I took a seminary course at the Canadian Theological Seminary that was taught by a Mohawk First Nation’s professor, Adrian Jacobs. His course was entitled: ‘Aboriginal Christianity-The Way It Was Meant To Be‘ based on his book by the same title (see picture). The following is a critique of his book found on-line: “The Church desperately needs Native leaders, like Adrian Jacobs, Cayuga Nation, who can articulate the theology and impact of Christ’s sanctification among First Nations people and their cultures.

In the class I took, entitled: Aboriginal Christianity – The Way It Was Meant to Be, Adrian Jacobs compared the frailty of the old missions ‘wine skins’ that is still currently used in native missions’ work must incorporate their native traditional ways, contextualizing the message to reach many of his people.  He brought solid scholarly perspectives from the Word of God from an Aboriginal perspective to challenge these old mindsets.

When I took his class we had some of our classes outside to emphasize that this is where his people needed to be to relate to Jesus Christ.  He stressed that church was not a building but was the people beyond the walls of a church or temple. This is where Jesus spoke to people, on a hillside and not in a formal setting.  

Many would’ve been able to relate and accept Jesus Christ if it were not for the tragedy of residential schools and formal, forced religion.

THE IRONY…

IRONY: In certain kinds of situational or historical irony, a factual truth is highlighted by some person’s complete ignorance of it or his belief in its opposite. The psychologist Martin, in The psychology of humour, is quite clear that irony is where “the literal meaning is opposite to the intended” -Wikipedia

Jesus Christ was NOT the one who brought ‘pain and suffering’ to the Aboriginal, First Nations peoples but it was our government institutions and the religious ‘non-Aboriginal’ population, who deemed they were superior and knew what was best for them.  Breaking-up the integrity of their families back then, tragically impacts them today.  Break-up a family and you control their destiny.

Bruised and broken families perpetuate it to others in their families.  Unless personal healing is achieved and generational acquired curses are reversed, they will remain the same.  Hence, “Healing the Nation-One Family At A Time“.

The destiny that the Government of Canada had for the First Nations’ peoples was a destiny ‘hatched in hell’.  They knowingly or unknowingly created this genocide but the end result was the same – disastrous -TRAGIC! and was not what Jesus would have been OK with.

So who is responsible for genocide, murder, sexual abuse-this evil The Biblical Answer is explained in the following scriptures:

vs 10. The thief (the Devil) comes only in order to steal, kill, and destroy. I (Jesus) have come in order that you might have life – life in all its fullness. John 10:10 (GNT)

• The irony of the residential schools is that Jesus Christ would NEVER support any genocide and that He too was exploited, rejected, abused and shunned.  This Jesus who was our ‘scapegoat’ in being crucified, is the One who offers to us healing and restoration and yes, Truth and Reconciliation. 
• Christ so deeply loves us all that He died for us.  If we believe in Him and call on His name, will not die but have eternal life. John 3:16
  

Healing the Legacy will take a Healer -It will take Jesus Christ:

Jesus Christ of Nazareth had so much in common with the Aboriginal, First Nations peoples.

He was:

1. olive-skinned– Although He was perceived as the ‘white-man’s’ religion, He was not ‘white’
2. nor was He religious. He came through the Jewish lineage but He was God with us-Emmanuel-for all mankind. He represented us all.
3. part of a tribe,
4. abused, demeaned, rejected, shamed, scorned and beaten.
5. crucified by government authorities and humiliated.
6. stricken with grief and dying
7. separated from his mother, family and friends he shared in their grief, helpless to change the course of history.
8. shamed and stripped naked and beaten beyond recognition and was nailed to a cross, feeling helpless to change the course of his life since He came to die for all of our sins.

Isaiah 53:5 Easy-to-Read Version (ERV) says: