Saturday, March 29, 2014

Wisdom, Truth and Reconciliation (Day 3)

Day 3 was my day to volunteer, so I didn't get to listen to very many sessions. But there were experiences worth remembering...

... a man whose painful past made many of us cry... and add our tissues to the collection for the sacred fire...

... a woman who said, "I forgive my abusers, not because they deserve my forgiveness, but because I deserve to be free of the pain and hatred. I am free!...

... Terry Lusty, whose poems I appreciated yesterday, telling me that once he became a teacher, he taught in a First Nations school that burned down, and it was forced to relocate to an old Residential School... he never thought he'd have to enter a Residential School again, and here he had to teach in one. It must have been difficult beyond imagining... I wish I had asked him how it was for him...

... two women chuckling at class pictures they found in the archives (where I was volunteering) over the expressions on their faces, and the faces of their friends...

... looking around the tables at the archives area where so many people were poring over photo albums and feeling it was, in a way, like a big family reunion... except for the pain...

Click here to see Day 1...
Click here to see Day 2...
Click here to see Day 4...

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