We sat in a meeting that day, and you said that the word “God” hurt you, raising memories of the residential schools and all they did in the name of God.

You may not have attended the residential school, but you carry the burden. I may not have perpetrated the residential school system, but I carry the shame.

Your words have echoed in my mind, and these words have been growing inside me until this day, when they spill out onto my computer screen. Will this bring you healing? No. Nevertheless, these words must come out, for my sake.

Your pain disturbs me, and so it should. But it must also move me to action, or I have failed.
​
The bodies of the lost children are surfacing. We are indignant on your behalf. We don orange, attend Gatherings, and write inspiring posts on social media to prove our commitment.

Later, we will return to our cocoons, still righteous, still indignant, but a little weary of it all. We will click “like” and “caring” on your posts, but we will move on. We will seek the next social trauma and focus our energy on that for a while.

The word “God” beats against your senses. That is our shame. We read the Gospels – the euangellion, the good news. We are thrilled by the teachings of this itinerant preacher/carpenter, and we claim them as our own. We build rituals and institutions to administer the teachings. We build a little box and there we place the marvelous limitless author of the universe. We summon this being to do our bidding, invoking him with formula and chant. We demand that he bless our actions, and we claim his voice.

Poor god locked in a box.

But really, there is no god in that box. He does not rise up to our whim, blessing our desires and changing the world to suit us. No, the True One sweeps open our hearts, causing us to fall to our knees before the wonders of creation. This is the One who moves us to rejoice. I like to think of this One as author, for he weaves our stories together, our stories spinning out like dreams. He never forces the ending. He respects his own laws.

So, where was this One while your children were in agony? He was there beside them, and he felt every nail, every thorn piercing his own heart as yours is pierced this day still, and he remains in agony beside you until the end.

Jesus gathered the little children close and blessed them. Yes, I am sure he felt their innocence and trust, but remember in Jesus’ time, children were a marginalized people, and he reached out and embraced all marginalized people. Jesus had a knack for celebrating and embracing others and somehow we have lost that. He did not strive to change people – he usually just asked them to follow him. I have seen the children following the dancers, mimicking and learning as they go. Thus we should follow him. I think Jesus would have been delighted if he could have attended a Gathering. He would have smiled there.  

The hollow box saddens me. Why did we force you to accept it? Why would we want it in the first place?

The prophet Zephaniah seems to know your story.

 At that time I will deal
    with all who oppressed you.
I will rescue the lame;
    I will gather the exiles.
I will give them praise and honor
    in every land where they have suffered shame.

The lost children of the residential schools were exiled; they suffered shame. And now they are being borne home, given honour and praise. Is this the Kairos, the appointed time foretold? And those of us who knelt and grappled and twisted the life-affirming words of Jesus into a sterile box with splinters are not after all the ones who will be uplifted? For as we uplift, so shall we be uplifted.

Is this the Kairos and now you come forward from your exile, where you were driven to the margins of the land, of the streets, and of the heart? Is this your time?

Will the word “God” become glorious on your tongue? When the word is pronounced, will it call into the moment all the Great Titles, especially the ultimate title by which you call him, Creator?

When we hear the word “God”, will we recognize each other as children of the Earth? Will we embrace the welcome that you have offered again and again and it will be so?

Is this, the early days of Truth and Reconciliation, your ­Kairos, and shall we dance with joy for you?

We have been present at your crucifixion, but if the Author of the Universe weaves us into your story, perhaps we shall celebrate with you in your resurrection.

One of the joys of being a Euro-Canadian child in the 1950’s was inspecting the presents under the Christmas tree each December. We had many relatives, and therefore the presents extended over the floor. Mysterious objects were lifted, flexed, and shaken. We poked and prodded and predicted; this one might be an artist’s sketch pad, or a treasure map, or a beautiful painting of a wild horse galloping over the prairies – not the school notebooks that it probably contained.

As a species, we love to predict and plan. We love to dream a future in which our lives will be rich and whole. We are troubled by our mortality, and yearn to describe what lies beyond our death. Invariably, we will be happy and we will be in charge. Those who disagree with us will probably not fare so well. This is by no means a new attitude. In the upheavals of the Middle Ages, there were many movements pointing to a future in which the good (us) would be vindicated, and the evil (all those who disagreed with us) would come to ruin. Norman Cohn covers such movements in The Pursuit of the Millennium. In our own time of upheaval, we would do well to reflect.

Many of us look forward to a Resurrection of the Dead, but none of us knows what is inside that package. Is it at the end of time? Is it a change experienced in the heart right now? Is it both? Is it just a dream? What did it mean to the followers of Jesus: Was it a physical event that affirmed their faith or was it, as Rudolf Bultmann suggested, a spiritual realization of the meaning of his ministry and death? We flex that package and try to guess what it contains.

When my son went missing on the north Labrador coast a few years ago, a friend told me not to worry, that my mother was in heaven watching over him. My first thought was “You mean this doesn’t end? When I die, I will sit perched on the edge of heaven, viewing my descendants plunging into danger, forever and ever? And everyone will expect me to pull off a miracle?” If my mother had been watching over my son, then she first should have kept his Satellite phone dry, because he was fine but his phone was not.

I was relieved to read that, biblically anyway, one typically rests with one’s ancestors in death, like King David . One does not watch grandchildren battling the waves and then try to control the storm for them. One does not spend eternity in a grand family reunion – I have enough trouble handling an afternoon at such events. I would rather spend eternity nurturing the crops, tending the livestock, and canoeing the shorelines. Especially shorelines like Rachel’s Wasaya Cove. I fashion an eternity that is pleasing to me.

For the Indigenous peoples, the spirit vibrates in the universe, and all creation is connected. They knew these things before they were written down. They lived these things and knew them in their hearts.

I read Genesis, and I learn how the Ruach (the Breath, the Spirit) moved over the waters, how it called forth all creation, how it breathed life into the first beings. There is raw creative power in those moments, but moved as we are, we try to force them into a box. We set boundaries; we develop residential school systems.

I like to think that my body will return to the earth, and the breath (that is, spirit) that moved in me in this life will return to that same marvellous breath that moves through the universe, that breathes life into the universe. I cannot say how it will unfold, but the Author of the Universe is both infinite and intimate. Whatever unfolds, it will be right.

I fashion an eternity that is pleasing to me. When I rip open the package on Christmas morning, it might be school notebooks. However, I can solve math problems in those notebooks, or jot notes for a remarkable novel.

I will take whatever Resurrection I get.

*****
Next time, I want to focus on Zephaniah, who reminds us that the Author of the Universe will deal with the oppressors, and give praise and honour to those who have suffered shame. As we look forward to growing together in Truth and Reconciliation, dare we hope that the day of uplifting has begun, for those who have been crucified? 

We crave certainty. We long for affirmation. We want to know that we are heading in the right direction.

In Matthew’s story of the Transfiguration (Matthew 17: 1-9), three disciples find their beliefs affirmed, and it is a magnificent and terrifying moment. It begins as a simple journey; Peter, James, and John accompany Jesus into the mountains. Suddenly, though, it becomes much more: dazzling light surrounds Jesus, and Moses and Elijah step out of history and chat with him. Peter begins to ramble about pitching tents; this is simple hospitality, perhaps, but I think that mainly he is trying to cover his anxiety: Are we experiencing a vision, or are we going mad? How do we respond to this moment? Let us pretend we were expecting this. When a voice blasts out of the cloud, their response is quite natural: they drop to the ground in pure terror. No one is comfortable with a true theophany, or manifestation of the divine.

We would like that level of assurance in our day to day lives. We are sick of masks. We are terrified of vaccines. Our fragile rights hang in the balance and we cling to our resilience with both hands. Wars erupt, flames explode, hurricanes rip through our settlements with unprecedented violence, and now solar storms loom on the horizon.

We are angry. We should not have to face such troubled times. We deserve better. God has abandoned us, so we are justified in abandoning God. We are free to be ourselves.

 Recent experiences with emergency wards have taught me, however, that God is present in the darkness. God comes not with hymns or collars or books. The voice of God does not boom from the heavens. God comes in ways that evoke stables and straw.

For seven hours one night, I received a vision of the blessed mother, not in blue in a grotto with light and rosaries. She was a true Madonna, my Madonna of the shadowed corridors, my Madonna in capris and t-shirt, my Madonna of the twisted braids. She paced the corridor, rocking her toddler, eyes on the child’s face.

For seven hours, she was alone. In former times, the nurses could see her sooner, but in these times, there are so many they must see. The Madonna knows this. In former times, someone could walk over and stretch out their arms, giving her a moment’s break. In these times, which are CoVid times, my Madonna stood alone. But then, the Madonna always stands alone.

In the haze of that night, as my anxiety rose, she paced, swaying, face close to her child’s. And peace washed over me.

I walked the hallway that night. There were stretchers in the shadows. A hoarse voice whispered in thirst. A hand emerged, offering ice chips; the voice was gentle. So this is what the cold cup of water in his name means. Someone will be there in the shadows, when the thirst is overwhelming.

And in another emergency ward, hundreds of miles away, a surgeon winds his way through the corridors. His long shift is over, and he longs to be with his family, but first he seeks out a young man, bewildered and in severe pain, so many miles from his northern home. The surgeon is gentle and welcoming; he explains things well and the young man relaxes. And hundreds of miles away, I give thanks for this angel that visited my son, and brought him comfort and hope.

We are weary of masks. We are terrified and we lash out.

But there, in the shadowed corridors of the emergency wards, God is present. There, in the fragile moments of our existence, in the seconds between the moments, God comes to us. These are holy moments. They lack elemental power, but they are powerful, just the same.
​
These are the moments of balance that show us that light in darkness is possible after all.

This section of the Park is stark and lonely, a glimpse of post-apocalyptic Kejimkujik. The rain falls harder. Once, canoes pulled to the shore, as the People made their way from the interior down to the sea. They journeyed back and forth, back and forth, and there was meaning and reason in each movement, and the hemlocks, the dead and the living, were not lonely.

• A Canoer of Shorelines, Ch. 5

The earth is exhausted from the machinations of the human race. The surface is scabbed and scarred, and the hidden poisons run deep. The summer sky is shadowed by the smoke of distant fires; disease creeps onto unwitting hosts, and illness erupts in secluded places and busy places.

Committees are formed and protests are held; these are good things that raise awareness. Still the temperatures soar, fires rage, and there are earthquakes in divers places. Viruses outmaneuver vaccination efforts. Wars worsen and acts of terror horrify. The hollow eyes of starving children stare into the camera. Our world has become a scene from a fantasy novel or dystopian tale and, for some, a prophetic fulfilment.

Creation is set in motion according to natural laws. We study these laws and look for ways to improve them. We have done great things, but at great cost. The Creator does not reverse our failures; this would reduce the splendid laws of the universe to whim and fancy. We have done this to ourselves, and must take responsibility.

I walk the clear-cut, and I weep for Mother Earth. Yet there, amid the scrub, clusters of blackberries gleam. Here, in the clear-cut, in this torn and devastated land, I find these berries, shining and fresh with the morning. This is a precious gift to receive – the affirmation that nature can renew, even this little bit.
​
Look here, a voice whispers, for here is light in darkness, hope in despair. This is a miracle, and what is a miracle but a science that you do not know? Walk with reverence here, for I am making all things new. Remember that you belong to the earth, that the earth does not belong to you. Learn from the earth, but do not presume to teach it. The earth will renew itself, if you let it happen. 

Thank God her brother had some Thanksgiving spirit and common sense and said she was teaching out near “The Park.” And thank God for the friendly staff at the gas bar who gave him good directions to this godforsaken lump of a house. They said his dog would love the fields but not to let him chase deer. Apparently, they came out where a barn or something used to be.

• A Canoer of Shorelines, ch. 7

 
Doug Simmons in ​A Canoer of Shorelines is used to functional directions, the kind that he would get today on a search engine. Turns, exits, distances – all are rendered without emotion, without the background detail that makes them real for some of us.

When I was driving the back roads to Val d’or, Quebec, and the cheery computer voice announced “Turn left at the fork in the road”, I began to seek that fork. Suddenly the voice exclaimed, “Take the left fork now!” There was a compelling urgency in the voice, and I slowed down, my eyes sweeping the trackless forest to my left. I could see occasional gaps between the trees; perhaps there was once a logging road out there. The Voice was still trapped in that era, and insisted that I drive out into the trees. When I did not, there was an abrupt blip, and my screen went grey. The Voice does not manage rejection well.
Ten kilometres later, the voice had forgiven me, and announced, “Continue for twenty-seven kilometres.” Perhaps computer voices cannot convey sullenness, but this one came close.

I glanced back, and sure enough, there were gaps along the swamp. Once, there was a road.

I am a Maritimer, and we don’t manage functional directions well. We want the story!
​
I wanted that computer voice to tell me the entire story; perhaps it could say, “Now we always turned left about here; you can see traces of the road if you look. There was a well-kept logging road, and it was our favourite shortcut. Then times got hard, and the trucks stopped running. They weren’t going to maintain it – it was along the swamp after all – so we keep to the main road now. Too bad about that.” Or maybe, “When [Name] won the lottery, they built a beautiful lodge back there and people came from miles around. They got old though, and their kids didn’t want a lodge, and it’s all grown in now. Kind of a shame.”

Good directions are supposed to inform us. Good directions are rich in history.

Maritime directions are like that. Most of us, when we go to town, confuse Aberdeen and Dufferin unless we are on them. The Call Centre is on Dufferin (I think), but good directions would begin “You know where the old hospital used to be? Yes, handy the fair grounds. Just down the hill….”

I once witnessed a clerk in town providing functional directions to the central post office. “You go down Victoria Road, cross the bridge and up Aberdeen, then turn left on the number 10….” The listener’s eyes began to glaze. I leaned forward. “Just past Frenchy’s, on your left, if you’re heading for Walmart.” The person was a Maritimer; we have an inner tracking device that will guide us to the nearest Frenchy’s.

But rural directions give the best history. The more rural the place, the richer the history. If you stand at the grocery store and ask directions to the hardware store, you might learn that:

The hardware store was always where the pharmacy is, right on the corner. They kept their supplies where the new place is. Of course, in those days the pharmacy was where the restaurant is today. They have good specials. The pharmacist always closed from twelve to one, but the new place is open. They have good gifts in there. Yes, the hardware store. You hold to the left at the corner, right where the pharmacy is, and you go past Duke’s barbershop. Of course, the barbershop is long closed – used to have a bowling alley there, and after it became a pizza shop. It’s all boarded up but it says “Pizza” and she made good ones, I must say. Now on your left a ways down, you’ll see our new medical centre, where the liquor store used to be but not exactly. The hardware store is just below, on your right, behind where the train station was. Yes, and the Mersey barns and all…”

You learn local history, and get a taste of what makes a place special, what makes it home to so many. You will never get that from “Stay on Route 8 South for about one kilometre. It’s on the right, and it has a sign on the road.”

Learning directions as a Maritimer has prepared me for interactions with other cultures.

“Where does this parent live?” I asked a teaching colleague in one community, indicating a name on my list.

“Oh! That’s easy!” she exclaimed. (I was sure it was not.) “You know where my new house is?”

“Not really.”

“Well, they’ve got the frame up now, over there.” She waved across the parking lot toward the lake. “It’s the orange one, right beside it. The one that’s brown but not blue.”

Being a Maritimer, I knew all would be revealed at the right time. Sure enough, as I wandered along, I saw the frame of a house rising beside the road. Close beside it were two bungalows; one was orange with brown panelling, and the other was blue with brown panelling. It was easy to pick the orange house that was brown, not to be confused with the blue one that was brown. Good directions don’t always make sense at first, but they will if you trust them.

Some might think there is a hunt of mockery here. I assure you, there is not. These are my people, my language, and my history. This is my home.

This is how we are. Doug, once again you have missed out.
​
I must go find an Internet connection and post this. You know that ledge where the snowplough turns? Okay! You go past that, past the old farm on the river. They haven’t hayed there in years. Once though, it was a farm and the foundations are still there. You can’t see the river because it’s down behind the hill. Well, pass that road and at the top of the hill on your right there is a ridge. Some days you get a signal there. 

Resentment, not gratitude, is rising in Julie, and for this she is sorry. However, she was mowing happily, the night far away from the sunny morning, and now it is over and Laila, not Julie, has saved the day and possibly the farm. Soon, every house will buzz with the knowledge that the new tenant has set the prized mower on fire. Heads will shake as hands reach for the phone. This one is surely worse than those bootleggers—remember them? Soon, Samuel will know that he has a very bad tenant, and will be studying the lease for clauses relating to termination of agreement.

• A Canoer of Shorelines, p. 51

Julie, in A Canoer of Shorelines, worries continually about what people are thinking of her. She wants to be independent, yet routinely squanders her independent moments wondering how people perceive her and her actions. She was not born in the nineteen fifties, but she had the mindset for it.

For many of us fifties children, worrying over the viewpoint of others is natural. We were raised on the fundamental question of life: What will the neighbours say? This was sometimes restated: What on earth must people be thinking?

How many times did we huddle at the scene of our latest crime, shoulders drooping, while a parent stared us down, a fist pressed to one hip, the other hand pointing to the horror we had been perpetrating, while demanding: What will the neighbours say?

Not: Do you seriously believe those paper bags and scotch tape would make an air balloon capable of flying your sister across the first field? From the top of the barn? The social perception, not the science, was challenged. Did they assume that we understood the science, but hadn’t stopped to consider the long-reaching social implications?

So you are five, and decide that sitting on the sheep pen fence with one leg dangling into the pen is a safe and happy practice. As you cling to the fence post screaming and the ram (this referring to the usually volatile male sheep of the herd, with the well-chosen name “Dynamite”) pounds your leg into the boards, a conversation develops.

Mother (from porch): What’s all the yelling?
Child (from fence): My leg! My leg! Dynamite’s got my leg!!!
Mother: Well, that will teach you to play on the sheep pen. Now get off.
Child: My leg! My leg! Dynamite’s got my leg!!!
Mother: Get off the fence then. Before you tear your clothes.
Child (descending from the fence, snivelling): My leg’s all black and blue.
Mother (checking a small bruising below the knee): What were you thinking? My god, what will the neighbours say?
Yet she hugs the child long and hard, rocking back and forth.

Somehow, we knew that behind the gruff exterior beat a heart that was terrified – a heart that cringed at every bruise, a heart that wanted to boot the ram across the sheep pen and did not dare betray its weakness. The neighbours were the personification of their own self-judgment.

So, like good children, we followed the rules and lived secret lives.

No, we did not to go swimming below the bridge because there was a soft bottom there. Instead, we built rafts using splintery old boards, made buoyant by empty sixties-issued bleach jugs, the ones that would deflect bullets. We climbed over sharp tin cans in the dump to find these. We bobbed, swayed, and tumbled, but we did not swim below the bridge.

When I was afraid of the dark, a plaster guardian angel was placed by my bed and I prayed dutifully to it for protection. Then I loaded my cap gun and slipped it under my pillow. When the night creatures surrounded me, I clutched the stock of my trusty six shooter and knew I was safe. I declared the prayer, but not the gun.

We raced along the beams in the hay loft, and sprang from bale to bale. We reported the truth; we were playing in the hay, and we saw the pigeons!

Somehow we survived a riotous game involving shoving one another off the hay wagon, without broken limbs or damage to the spine or brain. We were playing on the wagon!

I have no idea what the neighbours would have said, because we shielded our secret lives from parents, neighbours, and anyone else. That is why I raised my own child with particular care. I knew what he was capable of. Yet I have walked through a grove of trees to applaud the booby traps my son and his cousin had placed. I recall my amazement as a great log went whizzing past my head, released by a trip wire. It was a feat worthy of physicists. They were ten. And like ten year olds they were both proud of their achievement and horrified by the language with which I pointed out the inherent dangers of their cleverness. Oh! What would the neighbours have said if they could have heard me!

The trick, Julie, is not to let the neighbours rule you. Parents used the neighbours only allegorically. What will the neighbours say? translates I have failed to keep you safe, and you are the world to me. The neighbours are not lurking in the shadows, judging. You are judging them with your eyes, and judging yourself through their eyes. Embrace the love and the fear behind the question of the past, and get on with your adult life.
​
That is all the time I have. I have to find an Internet signal, and get this jumbled reflection posted. What will the neighbours say if I am late?

​
 “All the same,” Laila sighs. “All the same.” She brightens. “That Musko’s no fool. He’ll see it right.”

That is why dogs come to us.

• A Canoer of Shorelines, Ch. 8

 
Julie’s head snaps up. The dreams come to her waking now. Soon she will be living in them, everywhere.
 
She walks to the kitchen on rubbery legs, the floor rising and pitching beneath her feet. Musko whuffs at the door. Let’s walk, please. Let’s walk to the brook and wallow in the shady pool above the bridge. There are frogs to hunt and rich smells. Please, let’s go. Then we will stretch out in front of the fridge, and simply be. We will dream of frogs and rabbits and good things.

• A Canoer of Shorelines, Ch. 32

 
 
Musko is the great black dog that chooses Julie. She does not adopt him, and he is not a rescue dog. He had a good life, roaming free on the Reserve, a good and friendly dog, liked by all.

I have had people ask me, when I go north on a contract, to bring them back a dog. They even describe the type they want, like the community was perhaps a pet shop and I would browse the aisles, seeking their dog.  Some dogs are looking for a home, but some are happy just the way they are. It is important to learn the difference.

Musko had a home, and his home was the Reserve. He chose, however, to go with Julie. He was a watcher and a mentor, a being who appreciated the present and all it had to offer.

I believe Julie needed him to find her way through her dream life, and his presence was a gift.

As the world darkens around us, as we strive to suck each moment dry of all opportunity, we need the guidance of dogs. The other day as the heat pulsed around me, as CoVid numbers rose and fires scorched the earth, I came upon my husky, napping in front of the fan, four paws splayed to the breeze, eyes closed, husky smile playing about her mouth. “Today we have a fan,” she explained. “Let’s enjoy it, shall we?”

How did this special bond with humans come to be? I believe that Musko might tell it like this:
​
The Creator looked over all that he had made, and his heart broke.
For there was strife and violence over the earth, and the hearts of humans had turned to darkness. Rage, selfishness, and despair were everywhere. Many were seduced by the power of evil, and many brought low.
And then he saw his crowning achievement, the joy of his creation, Dog. And the Creator wept, for Dog was in chains, his eyes dulled, his spirit broken. How could this be? How could all the beauty and balance of the First Time come down and down to this?
So he gathered Dog and all his companions, and reached deep into their hearts. Some were too broken, and these he kept with him, to be healed in the fresh forests of another world, to be renewed that they might one day return.
To the others, he gave a blessing and said,
“I give you the strength to endure. I send you to seek out the broken among the humans, and lead them to find their hearts. You will listen, and you will lead. I send you, Dog, and your followers, to teach my people to be better human beings. You have patience, forgiveness, hope, and presence – the gifts of creation that they have forgotten.
“Your task will be hard, sometimes dangerous. But only you can accomplish this.
“Comfort, O comfort my people.”
That is why dogs come to you.

Perhaps I am fanciful, but then again, it feels good to relax in front of the fan, cool air pulsing against the soles of my feet.  I relax and draw down deep into my being.

And there I know, that if I can live with patience, forgiveness, hope, and presence, I can change a tiny bit of the world.

And that is a start.

Thank you, Musko.

But children are truth, and the truth will not be buried. It will call itself forth. 
And when the day of reckoning came, the earth heard and brought them forth. The earth itself called out for justice.

“Now I am pounding and screaming through the thick planks and there are voices on the other side, but they are chatting about something else. My story is important, I am screaming. Listen to it. Their voices are muffled, but I think that they are telling their own stories. Or perhaps they are telling their own story of me, a distorted story, and I am not really in it at all.
 
“They have their story of the owl, as it was for them.
 
“I know the real story, and I need one person to understand it…”
 
--Rachel, A Canoer of Shorelines, p.124
 
Wasaya is a healing place, a gentle, affirming setting, but Rachel misses much of the joy by indulging her human need to be understood – to have someone tell her that yes, she is doing it right; she belongs.
 
Really, how often are we truly understood?
 
In all honesty, would this understanding improve our lives?
 
Rachel would initially be relieved to meet this one person who understands her, but I believe that she would soon be looking for another, if only to confirm the findings of the first.
 
Jean Vanier sees the human condition so well in Becoming Human :
 
We have compulsive needs: to win, to control, to be loved. Likewise we have compulsive fears: inner        blockages, fears of some relationships, of conflict. These compulsions push us forward but they also      constrain us. They close us in on ourselves, make us blind to our own limits and brokenness, and to the beauty and gifts of those who are different. Under the control of our compulsions, others can quickly become a threat: they stand in the way of the love or success we seem to need so badly. (P. 113)
 
 
On a basic level, we miss our own lives when we indulge in these needs.
 
On a more dangerous level, we can ruin the lives of others.
 
Here is a parable about giving in to the compulsion to win, to control, to be loved:
 
There were once lost people who roamed the earth, going back and forth. They looked upon a new people and said, “Let us make them over in our image.” They did not stop to think that making things in one’s own image was actually the right of the Creator.
 
The lost people turned to this new people, and saw that they were marginalized, weak, and vulnerable. They formed a picture of how these new people must be remade. They consulted their books, and found approval for their quest. It would be easy, because they had power in the land.  And they saw that it was good.
 
These new people resisted mightily, for the picture forced upon them was strange and frightening. They had their own picture, their own story, and this was alien. They did not see themselves as a new people, for they had been present from the very beginning.
 
The lost people were angry, because the new people would not do what was best for them. The best was, without doubt, their way. Look upon us, the lost ones demanded, and see that we are worthy.
 
Let us take their children, they decided. It will be easy to remake the children. They will forget their ways, and crave our enlightenment.

Thus the dark scheme began.
 
Behold, the children wept in the night. Some died of grief, some of neglect, others through acts of violence. All suffered and were broken under the hands of the lost ones.
 
This was a shame on the lost ones, so they tried to bury the knowledge.

​The lost people hid the children in the ground, and walked away.
 
But children are truth, and the truth will not be buried. It will call itself forth.
 
And when the day of reckoning came, the earth heard and brought them forth.
 
The earth itself called out for justice.
 
For the children were always loved, always beautiful, always perfect.
 
And the rest of the parable lies in the future.
 
To win, to control, to be loved: we group these together. If we win, if we are in control, then we will be approved. We will be loved! However, love is not something we achieve; it is something we recognize and embrace. It is present. We always had it. We just didn’t notice.
 
When we surrender to the awareness that we are loved, we can begin. I turn again to my favourite quote from Henri Nouwen’s Here and Now: “Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing… can take that love away.”
 
To find joy in our own lives and in the lives of others, we must surrender our compulsions. All we need is the discovery that we are loved anyway, and that although none of us truly fit in, we all belong.
 
Creation flows through us and around us; the breath that moved over the waters in the beginning is the breath that stirs the trees around us and the same breath that flows through each of us. We are one, and we belong.
 
If only the lost people had remembered that they were loved unconditionally and from the beginning, then they would have walked with the new but ancient people, and the times and memories would have been gentle, like the sunrise over Rachel’s cove.
 
The children had known this unconditional love; it was embedded in their birth. And that is why they will ever be present.
 

​In the background there is a clattering and scraping as chairs are shoved back and ashtrays are flung beneath the sink. There is a glimpse of slim legs flashing up the stairs, shorts riding over thighs, as my mother and her younger sister, my dear Aunt Claudette, run gasping out of sight.

Now Father is standing on our driveway flanked by the Sisters, so much black fabric and Roman collar and wimple dazzling in the evening. My mother and Aunt Claudette pop through the screen door, breathless and delighted, now in swishing flowered skirts skimming just below the knee. There is a hint of hidden shorts in their eyes.
 
--Wasaya Journal of Rachel Hardy, A Canoer of Shorelines, pp. 19f.

In those days, a visit from the priest was a holy moment, and you could not receive sanctifying grace wearing shorts and clutching a cigarette. There were undisputed rules, but I recall the mischief and tongue in cheek of those moments. Perhaps that has helped me to grow old with a little honest grace, to see with both eyes open.

Rachel in A Canoer of Shorelines was born in the nineteen fifties, and so her formative years would be the sixties. This was my generation, too. Hers, like mine, was not a nostalgic journey through poodle skirts, marriage to a childhood sweetheart out of high school, and settling down to a modest bungalow with a neat lawn, doilies on the end tables, and years of dedication to church and community ahead. Nor was it a drifting into the sixties world of berets and esoteric jottings, later swirling with psychedelic colours and Trips!

We were innocent to the point of naiveté. We did as we were told. We did not dispute obscure truths like “Girls who talk like that wind up in the Convent of the Sacred Heart”, or “The Beatles won’t amount to much.” At the age of eight when I witnessed the rise of the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show, I planted my shuffling feet firm, and scoffed at their disgraceful hair. In my secret heart, I was at the edge of the stage screaming my adulation, but I was not going to wind up in convent school.

I suppose that I could say that  our parents manipulated us. However, in most instances it was for our own good. The woods, for example, are not a safe place for children to roam. Perhaps it was unfair of my parents to provide a particularly menacing version of a children’s song about picnicking teddy bears, but I know I never went into the woods alone – I had no desire to discover a swarm of glassy-eyed teddy bears lurching toward me from the shadows, zombie-like arms extended. Yes, that song stayed with me, a subliminal message planted by protective parents. I was sixteen and carrying a shotgun before I comfortably entered the woods on my own. The teddy bears were out there, at least until six o’clock when their parents took them home.

We did not question these things, but when it came to important truths we were not gullible.

Our access to television was limited to preserve our innocence, but our permitted shows were rife with violence and racism. Somehow, we accepted that what was happening was not real, and that if we drove off cliffs, we would not get up and start again. We had also seen real dynamite used in blasting stumps, and knew that if we stood on that stump, we would not wipe the soot and ashes from our faces and light the fuse again. We watched The Beverly Hillbillies, but did not emerge with a belief that grandmothers concocted moonshine and that mental challenges were a laughing matter. Personally, I worried over Jethro, and hoped that he would be safe.

We experienced things which touched us then ebbed away. In Grade one, we all sang with great gusto a most unusual song in which the protagonist mistook a man of colour for a horse. I felt puzzled, because the difference between a horse and a man should have been obvious. I recall that the teacher planned a float for our class in the parade, in which we would all be in dark face and seated in a watermelon patch. The plan was to make us look cute and funny. I was not comfortable; I thought this was an odd thing to do. We watched the original Peter Pan cartoon and were confused. Who were these strange beings pretending to be Indigenous and doing it so badly? Did they know how to work ash? The questions we should have asked were: “Who are the people that come up with these things? Why do they think these are funny? What are they telling us to believe? Who does believe them? Are they still among us?”

Did my parents sing racist songs, chuckle over racist movies, honestly believe that we were safe because they unsettled us with creepy songs? I do not think so. They were the types who greeted the priest with an impish smile, sinful shorts defiant under pious skirts. They were polite, but not intimidated. They were the moral compass that taught us to love the people of the world. I know that they were that moral compass because, by imitating them, I can be that moral compass for my grandchildren.
​
We can overcome our literal fifties naiveté; we do not have to be racists even if it was woven into our education. We can reach beyond the twisted stories, imitate the loving moments and the courageous moments that we were taught, and witness the birth of the world. For now, though, I must set this rambling aside. It is six o’clock, and I feel like a walk in the woods. 

“So. When do you think you’ll be heading out again?” Julie asks, for by now she is not just concerned, she is anxious.

Doug shakes his head, grimacing. “I’m sorry, but I thought we were clear on this. I thought we were going to try again.”

“No,” Julie replies. “I just said you could stay, you know, until –“

“Precisely. You did. And now, here I am.” Doug grins. “I’d say that this is a good start.”

• A Canoer  of Shorelines, p.93

Doug, in A Canoer of Shorelines, is not someone who sees the point of view of the other. Doug does not care about the point of view of the other. The world belongs to Doug, and the opinion of others is only there to serve him. Doug is full of dreams and plans, and he sees your view as simply academic.

What does Doug have to do with self-publishing? Nothing, really.  But Doug is out there, and as you set forth on the marketing road on your journey, as you writhe to bring your novel into the world, you will meet him.

Self-publishing is an exciting adventure, and soon your peers are celebrating sales and successes. Meanwhile your cousins and friends have bought your book and shared your news on Facebook. One has penned an amazing review. They are not what we call “market influencers”, but they are in your corner. That is important. The local store reports your success. They have already sold three books! And it has only been three weeks.
​
You are excited to see that you have many followers on Instagram now! Your inbox is filled with messages of support, and although on one level it is flattering to hear that your book is awesome, on another you worry about PayPal and hurt feelings.
You are a master of the Review Query, and have a media kit worthy of a Great Work. All you need is a Great Work to accompany it.
Somehow you schedule your first book signing to coincide with the book launch in a neighbouring town of a well-known local author. You are curled in a cozy section of a bookstore that pulses with love of books, chatting with other struggling writers about writer’s block, self-publishing, and the books we love.
You book a farm market again because you had a great visit last time – and discover that it coincides with the anticipated tropical-storm-with-significant-damage. You plan to pack a cross saw, because trees fall across your road with alarming frequency.
You have limited Internet access at the best of times; with the arrival of leaves and humidity, your signal becomes intermittent. You open promising sites, and the wheels spin. You are weary of “Check your Internet,” because you have no Internet. You scoop up lap top and portable Wi-Fi and race for the car, the dogs bounding behind you. “A car ride! A car ride! Yep! We’re going on a car ride.” You crowd them back into the house, dropping keys. The screen protector slips from your phone in the heat and slides between the slats in the deck. You leave it behind, needing to find a signal before your lap top expires. Now you are on the hill, and the temperature is 34 0C. Soon your Wi-Fi refuses to operate; it is hot to the touch. Your lap top announces that the battery is at critical low, and urges you to plug it in. You scream to the unfeeling universe that your lap top is too old for this service, and then you race for home to charge it up. You know that when you return, the signal will have moved on. You know that the Internet signal is not sentient, but you curse against a pitiless sky anyway.
You have opted to launch during the Third Wave, and you had a virtual book launch all planned. Now, you know that it will never happen, because no one wants to stare at an empty screen. You send messages and cheery updates and blog notifications instead, and begin to suspect how your marketer friends on Instagram feel when you ignore them.
Your business page will not let you post, and finally you begin to realize that the fault does not lie with Facebook. You have to log in from the browser. Just like you told people when you worked at the call centres and they didn’t like it either.
Between the moments, Doug steps in to orchestrate. Doug does not feel that you are trying hard enough. “Don’t listen,” your true friend urges; “just get your book out there -- you can concentrate on pre-Christmas sales with what you are learning now.”
Doug has ambitions involving marketing your literary novel at the adult shop in town; your friend suggests you follow the farm markets and the stores where you have discovered a kindred love of books, a possible family connection (You wore your well-loved Labrador t-shirt to a fascinating little store, and the proprietor was from Labrador!), independent book stores who will do anything to help a new author, and many reasons to smile. You discover the people that your book was written for. And you know that it is not a great book but it is a good book, because they are good people.
You awaken early one morning to a five-star review that is being posted on Twitter. Someone else is willing to undertake a review, someone who knows places that are special in the book. The Woodstock of farm markets has offered you a space. An email arrives late at night welcoming your book to a terrific little gift shop. The dogs have forgiven you for leaving them behind when you were on your car ride. Your life is moving forward. You have met incredible people and had great conversations. You have been reviewed and interviewed, and when you add up the sales, you realize that progress has been slow but steady.
Doug is not happy with these accomplishments. You are not selling many books, he reminds you. You sure didn’t organize this one!  You didn’t plan. Did you think to do a marketing plan? How about a media kit? Doug was not there during the long hours you and FriesenPress put into these! Perhaps he was doing inventory in the attic?
Then Laila steps in, and her words ring across the lake: A satisfied mind is the measure of success. You listen to that one who makes sense; never mind that Doug.
Self-publishing is a wonderful, painful, joy-filled journey. Too bad, Doug, that you missed the fun.