Allen G. Jorgenson
Friends, I was asked to provide a blessing for some pilgrims walking from Kitchener to Ottawa in support of Bill C 262, which requests the implementation in Canada of the United Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as the framework for truth and reconciliation, as per the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s report.
This pilgrimage has been organized by the Mennonite Church Canada. My blessing followed upon a traditional sending by Myeengun Henry, an Ojibway elder in our city. The text for it follows:
God bless you in this journey of justice and peace.
May your feet feel each treaty
Holding you as you cross its reach,
Sustaining you as you walk in a good way.
May your ears be ready to hear
The stories sown in the territory you
Traverse step by step.
May your hearts beat in time with
Our Mother, the Earth
Who watches over you
In love, in delight.
May your minds be as one
In the community you are
On the way to truth and reconciliation.
And may you know
That your knowing is first being known.
And your loving is first being loved.
And your passion for justice and peace
Is first and finally God’s Reign in your midst.
God be above you, below you , behind you, beside you, before you and within you – as Holy Flame; as Sacred Word.
