We Acknowledge

 Trinity acknowledges Every Child Matters. Each September 30th, Trinity renews our efforts to seek more knowledge and understanding in our respond to Indigenous issues and concerns. 

As the TRC’s Summary Report and Calls to Action make clear, we still have a very long journey ahead of us.  

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission unveiled a history that is not simply about misguided and profoundly abusive attempts to assimilate Indigenous peoples.  

It also revealed a colonial legacy that continues to this day, making itself known in inequities and injustices in areas as far-ranging as education and child welfare, violence against women, and violation of treaty and nation-to-nation rights in the face of resource extraction on Indigenous lands.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has confirmed for Canada that the path towards reconciliation is also unquestionably the path towards justice.

In receiving the final Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and through resolution at General Council 42, the Church has committed itself to an agenda for reconciliation and justice.

For more than 30 years, the United Church and Indigenous peoples have been on a journey towards mutuality, respond and equity.  Towards reconciliation.  Towards Justice.

The Earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof... — Psalm 24:1

This is a revolutionary statement and perhaps it can be best

acknowledged and appreciated on the longest day of the year:

Summer Solstice, June 21.

We do not own ourselves; we do not own anything. We are the

Lord’s, as is all of Creation. We have a borrowed life on borrowed

time—let us make the best of it. We are gifted from Creator for one

another; all of life is interconnected and we need each other.

June has been identified as Indigenous History Month. June 21st, a

day when traditional ceremonies have taken place for centuries, is

celebrated as National Indigenous Day.

We need to see history through the eyes of the oppressed, those

closest to the Earth—Indigenous Peoples—and even through

Creation itself. I once heard an Elder say, “If those trees could only

speak.” So many facts of history have been hidden, covered up or

ignored, as if not relevant or important, and yet these hidden truths

are the most important of all. “The stone which the builders rejected

as worthless turned out to be the most important of all” (Psalm

118:22).

Truth cannot be hidden. It eventually rises up and is revealed. This is

evidenced by the countless stories of pain, abuse, and even death as

more and more graves of children at former Residential Schools are

being identified.

Healing and wholeness are only possible as Truth is revealed. And

perhaps then Reconciliation can begin.

— Rev. John R. Thompson, Co-Chair, National Indigenous Council