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Walk in the Spirit of Reconciliation
10th Anniversary

Ey swayel

My name is Paul Guiton, and I was honoured to be one of the group that developed the concept for the Walk in the Spirit of Reconciliation, 10 years ago. I am so disappointed that I cannot be with you, today. Unfortunately, I am dealing with some health issues that make it impossible for me to attend.

The inspiration for the Walk, came from the belief that all human beings are spiritual beings. The elders teach that all of creation is inherently spiritual. That whatever you choose to call it, there is a higher power, beyond our individual physical being. And it is in connecting with that higher power that we find our spiritual self. And it is our spiritual self that is our better self, because it recognizes that we are not the centre of the universe after all. We can only be our better selves when we understand that we are part of something much bigger and that working together makes us much stronger than working against.

Sadly, that is not the world we live in when everything pushes us to division and hate. We were never created to hate. (Here ends the sermon!)

What is striking is that both Christians and many indigenous peoples describe that higher power as Creator - the creating force in our universe – the opposite of destructive. Could it be that the spiritual sensibility of our different peoples has more in common than we have been taught? 

In particular, it was hard for me to understand how my Anglican church could have been involved for so many years in the crime which was the residential school system for indigenous children in Canada. Surely, churches had allowed their spiritual selves to be overtaken by the human desire for power and control. As I said in CBC National News at the time – “the Church had clearly lost its way.”

It was the year of the 94 calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission? And we needed to examine how we could respond.  My denomination, along with others, had made a formal apology for the wrong it had done – but then what? How might we find a path forward for our spiritual selves? 

At that time, I read an article by Bishop Mark Macdonald, the then Indigenous Bishop for the Anglican Chrich of Canada. (Bishop MacDonald has since been disgraced, which just reminds us how flawed we all are!). He pointed out that the Sacred Walk is a spiritual practice among both indigenous peoples and Christians, - a practice that helps us to re-connect with our spiritual selves. 

I’m not qualified to speak about the Spirit Walk, practised by many indigenous peoples, but my sense is that it is a way to find oneself and to make connection with Creation. The Pilgrimage is an ancient spiritual practice of the Church that involves a journey to connect with the divine, by visiting sacred sites, often associated with holy men and women of the past. Sometimes it’s a quest for healing, but there is also an element of penance – a sacrifice to make up for the ways we have fallen short f our spiritual selves. Any of you who have walked up from Nathan Creek, by the Fraser up to Mount Lehman United Church, or up from Mission bridge to Peckqualis, understand the meaning of penance.

So, we felt that a fitting way to honour the terrible experiences of so many indigenous children over so many years, was to undertake a Walk or Pilgrimage from Fort Langley – bastion of colonialism – to the site of St. Mary’s Indian Residential School in Mission. A distance of 35Km. over three days. And that was how we started.

Turns out we weren’t alone on the journey, because around the same time, my friend Cecelia was able to arrange for a visit from Wab Kinew, who, as we know has gone on to greater things. As I’m sure you know, his book, published in that same year, is entitled The Reason you Walk.

With your permission, I’d like to quote from that book.

“I am the reason you walk. I created you so that you might walk the earth. I am the reason you walk. I gave you motivation so you would continue to walk even when the path became difficult, even impossible. I am the reason you walk. I animated you with the driving force called love, which compelled you to help others who had forgotten they were brothers and sisters to take steps back towards one another.”

All my relations!