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Back in 2021, I was invited to participate in a workshop called The Art of Reconciliation. I met with other young people, Indigenous and non-Indigenous folks, to talk about what Reconciliation means to us, to receive teaching on the local Nations and to create art together. 

Our first art installation at the Esquimalt Community Arts Hub was noticed by MLA Mitzi Dean, who very generously invited us a meeting with the Honourabl Speaker of the House, Raj Chouhan to talk about our project and ask that it be displayed at the Legislature. He agreed to host our installation for the 2022 National Day of Truth and Reconciliation. 

To my surprise, and absolute honour, I was invited to speak at the Opening Ceremony for this event on Monday and share the story of the time our church was spray painted with messages about reconciliation that very same summer. Pastor Kyla came with me, and it was so moving to view the art of other cohorts who have gone through the program alongside my own. 

I would like to thank and honour VAC, my staff team, and the Board who have been so supportive of my work with The Art of Reconciliation. This speech would not have been possible without you, my church community. I've included it here, for your encouragement and reflection. 

Warmly,
Pastor Bekah 

P.S. Our installation is available to view from now until Oct 17, and will be specially opened on Friday Sep 30 from 12pm-4pm. I encourage you to go and view it if you are able. Here's a link to more information.

 

Good Afternoon! 

My name is Rebekah Hagan Ahenda and I am the descendant of settlers - immigrants - to Canada.  My mother and her family came from England in the 70s, like many, seeking a better life for their family; and my father’s Mennonite grandparents arrived in 1926, fleeing the Russian Revolution. I carry both great joy that my family’s ancestors found some relief from poverty, opportunity, and community on this land, and I also carry great sorrow that these things have come at such an unimaginable cost.

To begin I would like to express my warmest thanks to Florence Dick from Songhees nation for welcoming us into this space, and to the Honourable Mr Speaker for your generous support of the Art of Reconciliation program.

I also wish to humbly express my deep gratitude to the Lekwungen speaking peoples including the Songhees and Esquimalt nations, and the Wsaanich Peoples, upon whose traditional territory I make my home and practice my art, and work as a Pastor at Victoria Alliance Church. I bring you warm greetings from our faith community today.

When I was accepted to participate in the first cohort of the Art of Reconciliation program, I wasn’t sure what to expect. While I would call myself an artist now, I didn’t then, and I was definitely pretty nervous. I am constantly held back by colonial notions of perfectionism and artistic excellence that have kept me from expressing myself for some time.

Through the teachings, art therapy sessions, and community built in this program, I gained the confidence to set aside perfectionism for authenticity, and the ability to make a mistake on a page and still call it art.

Not only did I gain the confidence to make mistakes on the page, I also was invited, lovingly and gently, into making mistakes in reconciliation. For me, I have spent far too long doing nothing for fear of doing something wrong.

And so I would like to share a short story of how participating in the Art of Reconciliation affected not only myself, but also my church community. In the summer of 2021, when the first cohort of AOR was running, our church was one of many covered in spray-painted messages. An orange teeshirt on the side of the building. Land Back. Most poignantly, on either side of our front entrance, spray painted in red: “No pride - in genocide.”

As a staff team, we sat with what had happened, we realized we had a choice. We could cover it up, pretend it didn’t happen, or we could acknowledge it and address it head on.

I was grateful for the opportunity to take what I had learned through the Art of Reconciliation and work alongside my staff team to create space to grieve what church represents to our Indigenous neighbours.

I’d like read for you a short portion of our statement to our church community from that day, written by my colleague Pastor Kyla:

"Friends, we are living in a time where, across the country, truth is being brough to the surface…  As a church, we desire to adopt a posture that reflects the humility of Jesus. Please hear us on this: there is no easy way forward from here. We will not all agree as we move. Reconciliation will often be painful and messy. There is no pathway around it, either. It has literally come knocking on our doorstep.

As our staff team prayed about this, we heard the Spirit invite us to linger in this moment for a while. To let the words on the building bring about a holy conviction. For, as Christ's ambassadors, we would be wise to add the words "We confess" to the front of many of the slogans emblazoned on our church walls.  

We confess that there is no pride in genocide.
We confess that the Church has lied by omission and erasure.  
We confess that the losses of missing and murdered indigenous women and children have not broken our hearts as they ought to.  
We confess that the "system" is broken and biased to favour white supremacy.  
We confess that we have failed to love others as Christ loves them.  
We confess that we too often look away, cover over, and ignore the cries of protest, cries of pain, and cries for justice.
Lord, have mercy.

So, while we are grateful for the many volunteers who jumped in quickly to help clean up the spray-painted walls, we have chosen to leave a few of the words over our doorway. It will not be for long, but for now. We trust as a congregation we will be able to agree that we don't need to pray for clean walls as much as we need to pray for clean hearts. We believe and trust that Jesus will most assuredly meet us in our mess."

The walls of our church have since been repainted, but this moment made a big impact on our community.  I sat in a circle with some of our church leaders this Sunday, preparing to pray before our service. As we were honouring the Naitonal Day for Truth and Reconciliation in our service, we were discussing what that meant to us. Something one of our leaders said really stuck with me, and to close, I’d like to share that with you. He shared: Sometimes it feels like I’m over here, and they’re over there. And I don’t want to engage in the messy middle. But I hope that we can.

I hope that we can.

Thank you for honouring the work of the Art of Reconciliation program today with your presence. May we be freed from the illusion of perfectionism. May we humbly go together into the messy middle, mistakes and all. Thank you.