Message of the Day from Rev. Mary White
Good Afternoon and Blessings
Tomorrow, September 30, 2020, is Orange Shirt Day. Orange Shirt Day is a movement that officially began
in 2013 but in reality it began in 1973 when six year old Phyllis Webstad entered the St. Joseph Mission Residential School, outside of Williams Lake, BC.
The “orange shirt” in Orange Shirt Day refers to the new shirt that Phyllis Webstad was given to her by her grandmother for her first day of school at St. Joseph's Mission residential school. When Phyllis got to school, they took away her clothes, including her new shirt. It was never returned.
Wearing an orange shirt and promoting the slogan, Every Child Matters, is an affirmation of our commitment to raise awareness of the residential school experience and to ensure that every child matters as we focus on our hope for a better future in which children are empowered to help each other.
Keep safe, Keep connected.
Blessings and the strength of Love be with you.
Rev. Mary,
revmjwhite@hotmail.ca
Excerpt From: Betty Lynn Schwab. “Rising with the Morning Star.”
“In a sincere effort to bring about health in body and spirit to those who suffered much in Canada’s Indian residential schools, the federal government apologized to the whole Aboriginal community and compensated individual former students, bringing some measure of release and healing for many. However, that ministry of healing souls and communities continues today. It is a vivid example of the African ubuntu philosophy (and theology): “I am what I am because we all are.”
How can contemporary Christians overcome some of those unhealthy dualisms (“either/or”) inherited by a Christianity imbued with Greek thought? One possibility lies in paying attention to wider cultural and spiritual traditions—for example, the Aboriginal Medicine Wheel with its four quadrants of the spiritual, the emotional, the physical, and the intellectual. Another is the “both…and” Taoist practice that manages to contain both the yin (dark/shadow, passive, cool, pliable) and the yang (sunny, active, warm) sides of the human self.
Might it be worth exploring the Medicine Wheel to help recover some wholeness?”
Prayer Of The Day
Healing Creator
God of both hallelujahs and of tears,
we give thanks for your commitment for the completeness of your cosmos and of human life.
Forgive us for the foolishness and defiance
that have damaged this wholeness.
Teach us the direction back;
show us the path of healing
in Jesus’ name.
Amen.