Deconstructing Gentrification Justifications : "Anything is better than what's there now!"

Hunger striker entering his 3rd week of hunger.  Read more here.

I've been slacking off a bit on this gentrification blog series, even as the debate on gentrification in my neighbourhood has heated up with the Pidgin Restaurant Picket and the Hunger Strike by Formerly-Homeless Dave, so I'm going to try to get back in gear and complete it.

First, if you haven't already done so, read my introductory post on gentrification here.

I'm in the middle of trying to deconstruct some of the common justifications for gentrification.  The first is done, and we're on to the second.

1. Increasing the diversity of the neighbourhood (social mix) is good.
2. We need to do something about this neighbourhood!  Anything is better than what's there now.
3. Gentrification is inevitable, so at least be happy you get some benefits!
4. We have the right to live here, and you don't.

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"We need to do something about the Downtown Eastside."

Imagine hearing someone say this.  In your imagination, whose voice is speaking?  How are they saying this?  Are they frustrated?  Hopeful?  Empathetic?

When I hear it in my imagination, I primarily hear the voices of people who live in other neighbourhoods.  Privileged people.  They might drive by Main and Hastings on their way to work.  Some of them work in the DTES.  Some of them come and eat in the new restaurants opening up in the DTES.  Some of them just read about the DTES in the paper.  Some of them really care about the people in the DTES.

I hear this phrase in my own privileged voice, as someone who is desperate to fix broken things.  But it makes me ask, why are we privileged people interested in "doing something" about the DTES?

If I'm honest with myself, it's not primarily to help all the people living in the DTES.  It's actually to help myself.  Because I'm uncomfortable with, or embarrassed about, or ashamed of the DTES.  I'm ashamed at how money has been wasted.  I'm embarrassed it hasn't done much good.  I'm uncomfortable with the suffering I see.

Christena Cleveland's blog does a good job of unpacking this.  She writes, "Solving oppressed people’s problems rids privileged people of their own discomfort... I periodically ask myself, whose discomfort is motivating me to act – my own or the oppressed person’s? Oftentimes, I must admit that my own discomfort with oppressed people’s suffering primarily motivates me to advocate for oppressed people. I feel better when they are no longer suffering and I no longer have to stand with them in their suffering or think about their suffering. When this occurs, their feelings and needs are secondary to my own.  And once again the situation revolves around me, the privileged person. Mission not accomplished."

I don't think the middle and upper class of Vancouver are entirely evil and greedy and just want to take over the DTES.  I don't think they're all just eager to sweep addicts and poor people out of sight.  I think there are a lot of Vancouverites who really and sincerely believe that gentrification will help the people of the DTES.  The problem with this is that they haven't asked the people of the DTES whether they want their neighbourhood to be gentrified, or how they want to be helped.**
 
This whole idea of "asking the residents" may sound strange if you see people in the DTES as dependents who are unable to think for or beyond themselves.  Now it is true that some people in the DTES are in such deep life crisis, or are so mentally ill that thinking big-picture and long-term about the neighbourhood would be very difficult.  When "survival" is at the top of your priority list, contributing to the future of your neighbourhood is, frankly, pretty low on your list.  It's also true that some people are just happy to leech off the system and not contribute anything to the health of the DTES (though it would be interesting to explore how they got that way... that's a topic for another blog post!).  But people in such limiting situations exist in every neighbourhood - they're just not always as visible as they are in the DTES.  And there are plenty of current DTES residents who are eager to dream about what their neighbourhood could look like.

The approach I've grown to admire is often called an asset-based approach, or a strengths-based approach.  It's based on the idea that people are experts on their own lives.  It privileges the wealth of lived experience they possess.  The residents start by identifying the strengths or assets of their community.  Can't think of any strengths in the DTES?  Did you know that DTES residents contribute more volunteer hours to their community than any other neighbourhood in Vancouver?  The DTES also has a higher concentration of artists than any other neighbourhood in Vancouver.  And many people, including myself, find an unparalleled sense of community, empathy and acceptance in the DTES.

After identifying strengths, the residents identify their community's weaknesses, ask what they can contribute to solve their own problems, and in what specific areas they want to request help from outside sources. 

A good example of a strengths-based and community-led approach would be the CCAP Vision for the DTES, summarized in their "Assets to Action" report.  Hundreds of DTES residents contributed to this beautiful vision for their neighbourhood.  It is definitely worth a read.

It's simply not true that "anything would be better than what is in the DTES now."  "Anything" implies experimentation regardless of the consequences, and "anything" will likely fail to protect the most vulnerable people in the neighbourhood, and fail to observe or preserve the strengths of the community.  No matter how compassionate and eager to help privileged people may be, if we proceed without listening and letting oppressed people lead the way, if we treat DTES residents like children to be parented or savages to be tamed, and if we rush into fixing problems primarily to rid ourselves of discomfort, we will certainly fail.  (Just ask the average third-world citizen how well it's gone over when NGOs have done this kind of thing in their countries.)  Simply "trying something new," and treating the DTES like a laboratory for city planning,a zoning, and policing is unethical and unjust.  We need to free the residents of the DTES to dictate what "would be better" for themselves, to determine their own future goals, and to decide how to get there, for the sake of their children and grandchildren.

 "We need to do something about the DTES."  I can't wait for the day when the majority of people empowered to dream and act and speak this phrase are the residents of the DTES, and when the rest of us have the patience and the trust to let them do so.

----------------------------

**In a way, the people of the DTES are currently being asked how they want to be helped.  I am serving as one of the low-income representatives on the Local Area Planning Process (LAPP) for the DTES.  This city-funded process was a concession prize to the neighbourhood after we lost a fight against a big condo project in Chinatown.  It took a year to set the terms of reference for the LAPP, and our thirty-person committee, made up of low-income people, business people, and service providers, has now been meeting for over a year.  We're supposed to have a plan for the neighbourhood by November.  But the process has been incredibly frustrating for almost everyone involved.  I spoke up at the last meeting to point out that our time is almost entirely consumed by listening to reports and dealing with governance and process issues, leaving us almost zero time to brainstorm, to discuss controversial issues and to attempt to find points of consensus.  I have low expectations that the plan will reflect the wishes of most DTES residents, and even lower expectations that the City will follow the plan.  So I'm not sure yet whether this counts as "asking the neighbourhood how it wants to be helped."  I'll keep you posted.

Easter #5

He is risen indeed!

Good Friday #5

It's the first thing we did as a church
Good Friday
outdoors
Jodi said we shouldn't start on Easter
no right to celebrate life in the DTES
if we haven't tasted the death
so we did
twenty-one of us
made a pinecone cross

today was our fifth Good Friday
hardly any left from that first twenty-one
(where did they all go?)
welcoming other communities to join us
our biggest crowd ever
wandering the streets
drawing stares

it is right that we should be

in the park

Oppenheimer is Gethsemane

we listen to the betrayal

it is right that we should be

at community court

not at the provincial court

it was the community

who wanted him dead

can't blame big shot judges

we all killed him

it is right that we should be

on stolen ground

contested space

he had no place of his own

it is right that we should be

in the alley

avoided all days but today

Judah points down at

the "needles with the poison still in them"

dumping ground

toilet of the people

the stink of it

death strips his dignity 

death rules even him

at least for now

it is right to end on the beach

how excited we are to build 

this instrument of execution

much bigger this time, 

wood, not pinecones

kids balance on it

Jenny and Adria hammer in

some old, rusty nails

biking home afterward
past the women on the corner
whose bodies are for sale
I marvel at how
this place can still muster a Good Friday
on a beautiful sunny day

I grew up an easy-Easter girl
now I spend all year
in Good Friday
 
some days I think he's here
here among the poison needles
with the abandoned
with the betrayed
with the devil on his back

other days
he's dead

Deconstructing Gentrification Justifications: "Mix it up a bit, why don't you?"

First, if you haven't already done so, read my introductory post on gentrification here.

For a while now, I've been reading the comments on online articles about gentrification in the DTES.  I know, I know, reading online comments is a bad idea, a sure way to experience the worst in humanity.  But I have this theory that you can actually distill some popular opinions from online comments if you cut through the inflammatory language and go to the core of the argument.  I have boiled them down to four main categories, and I will dedicate a short post to each of them, from least brutal to most brutal (and perhaps most honest).

1. Increasing the diversity of the neighbourhood (social mix) is good.
2. We need to do something about this neighbourhood!  Anything is better than what's there now.
3. Gentrification is inevitable, so at least be happy you get some benefits!
4. We have the right to live here, and you don't.

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Social mix (my definition): The idea that it is desirable to have a balance between lower-income and higher-income people (and their respective housing types) in a neighbourhood, in order to promote diversity, sustainability, health, and quality of life for everyone.

Some social mixing happening at Jacob's Well.

I should really be the most ardent proponent of the "social mix" argument.  My work, in essence, is social mix.  As I'll discuss below, most people in life prefer to form fairly comfortable friendships with people who are similar to them.  But my two DTES communities, Jacob's Well and God's House of Many Faces, both promote the importance of mutually transformative friendships between people from very different groups, which is an integral part of the larger-scale work of reconciliation that we pray will happen between people groups.  We believe that the Kingdom of God is incredibly diverse, and that we should start practicing this Kingdom life right now on earth.

The problem is, it's not easy.  We need practice.  Jacob's Well and church are about training ourselves in this neighbour-love.  Loving our very-different-neighbor takes hard work, humility, patience, willingness to be wrong and to learn, a high tolerance for awkwardness & misunderstandings, and the desire to see the best in each other.  Even when we begin with these good intentions, we regularly screw things up and offend one another. We have to suck it up, forgive each other, and start again.

So imagine what happens when higher-income people move into the neighbourhood without a real desire to get to know and love their low-income neighbors.  You don't need to imagine.  I'll give you a couple examples.

Until they moved to Mount Pleasant last month, a social media company called Hootsuite had offices in the DTES. One of their employees posted this on Twitter the day they moved: "Last day in #DTES office, I will probably miss the midget prostitute the most. Smell ya later Eastside (literally). Hello Mt Pleasant!"

One year ago, a man named Mike Comrie wrote an article in the National Post called "Raising kids amid the hookers, junkies and drunks of Vancouver's worst neighbourhood."  The father of two wrote this: "I had to quickly learn how to politely decline enthusiastic gifts of “recycled” stuffed animals offered by dumpster divers, and how to take it in stride when alarmingly filthy individuals, clearly intoxicated and probably insane, wanted to exchange baby talk with our little ones."  Ironically, this middle-income man who social-mixed himself into the DTES ends his letter by articulating hopes that gentrification will move along more quickly.

(For some responses and alternative perspectives on raising kids in our neighbourhood, see the video below, and PLEASE read the very thoughtful reply to Mike's letter from Krista-Dawn, a mother of two and member of my church, posted here.)

It's not that Mike Comrie or the woman from Hootsuite are evil people.  They're fairly normal people.  They're like you and I - they tend to associate with people who are a lot like them, and when they encounter people who are very different from them, they often misunderstand them, are afraid of them, or are disgusted by them.  This same tendency is what leads many low-income people in the DTES to want to stay together in the DTES instead of moving to neighbourhoods that don't already include low-income people (besides the fact that there is no housing for them there).  They want to be in a place where they fit in, where they don't have to pretend to be something they're not, where they're not treated with fear or disgust.  A place where they're with people like them, where they feel a sense of belonging and community.

Woodwards housing

My biggest problem with social mix is that it naively posits that merely putting diverse people close together will produce health and neighborliness.  It won't, without willing participants and the help of the Holy Spirit, because of the human tendencies I described above.  It hasn't produced neighborliness at the most highly touted social-mix project in our 'hood, the Woodwards housing complex.  There, 500 condos stand beside 200 units of social housing, in what is supposed to be a beautiful, diverse revitalizing community in the neighbourhood.   My friend Karen lives in the social housing at Woodwards.  She has yet to even meet a single person who lives in the condos.  But she has seen the whole area around her building transform into a high-income zone, and she can no longer afford anything at the restaurants and stores.

Some take the idea of social mix so far as to say that putting rich people in poor neighbourhoods will make poor people more likely to want to improve their lives (i.e. stop behaving so badly and being so lazy).  The sheer hubris of this thinking is staggering, not to mention the way it ignores the root causes of poverty.  (Oh yeah, definitely, what poor people need in order to escape their poverty is the reminder of what it looks like to be rich.)  It also implies that the rich people are the healthy ones, and that they don't need to improve their lives or learn from the poor.  People in the DTES have much to teach, if we'll listen, and this is part of what it means to be neighbourly.  For starters, they have learned how to live and build community in the midst of incredible racial and cultural diversity.  The DTES is, in some ways, very mixed already.

If we really believed in the benefits social mix, we'd be eagerly making room for poor people to live in rich neighbourhoods.  But this is not the case, as I highlighted in this satirical blog post.  Most Vancouver neighbourhoods fight hard to prevent social housing buildings, housing for the mentally ill, and shelters from being built on their turf, because it would bring "dangerous" people near and would decrease their property values.  We see far more "NIMBYs" than "YIMBYs". 

That's why I'm inclined to believe that social mix is a utopian, benevolent-sounding mask for what amounts to capitalist and colonialist greed.  More on that in a future blog post.

Having said that, "social mix" is still a key part of my long-term, Kingdom-of-God vision for the earth.  I need to learn from poor people, and they have things to learn from me.  We need to learn to love one another as neighbours.  So as we think about solutions to gentrification, we can't just settle with staying completely segregated.  We need ways for people who are ready and eager to be neighbourly to actually move in and be neighbourly, without displacing the most vulnerable.  More on that in a future blog post, too!

Gentrification: the series

One note before I start: I tend to hate New Years' resolutions, but I have a sort-of-resolution for 2013.  I really want to practice writing this year, to find my voice.  So my goal is to write a blog entry at least once a month.  I say this with fear and trembling... please hold me accountable!

For a while now, I've wanted to dedicate a post to gentrification, one of the most important and contentious realities in my neighbourhood today.  I've written bits and pieces on it here (satirically) and here (when I moved in), but I've never really delved into it.  I think the reason I've resisted writing about gentrification is that I don't feel sure of my convictions - I've felt conflicted about my own analysis and response to it.  But I think it's time to tackle this topic.

One of my problems is that I have too many thoughts, so I'm going to embark on yet another series of posts.  This post will be the introduction to gentrification.  Then I'll examine some of the justifications I hear for gentrification.  Finally, I'll take a theological approach and ask what our response to gentrification could look like.

What is gentrification?  You'll get a different spin on it depending on whom you ask.  Some might say it's neighbourhood revitalization.  Others call it social cleansing.  This video gives a tongue-in-cheek, cynical view of gentrification.  It's a process that's happening in many poor urban centers worldwide.  In North America, it usually begins when artists and hipsters (and - according to the video - lesbians!) move into inner-city, impoverished neighbourhoods that most middle- and upper-class people avoid or consider undesirable.  Trendy restaurants and coffee shops pop up.  Real estate developers track the new interest, build condos and re-brand the neighbourhood as "edgy" and "affordable."  Landlords renovate old low-income housing buildings and increase the rent, resulting in the "renovictions" of people who once lived there but can no longer afford it.  Property values increase in the surrounding area, so that even in surviving low-income housing buildings, rents go up.  New businesses move in, catering to wealthier people, and security guards are posted.  Poorer people are eventually priced out of the neighbourhood, which is now so transformed that it doesn't even seem like their neighbourhood anymore.  But it's prettier, "safer," and business is definitely booming. 

The situation in Vancouver is amplified by the reality that developers are running out of room to build in the downtown core.  But there are plenty of people who would be happy to live in close proximity to downtown, like, say, just east of it, in the neighbourhood I live in, the Downtown Eastside (DTES).  Gentrification has been happening here over the last several years, and the pace is accelerating.  Now condo developments have been built or announced at each edge of the neighbourhood, and even right in the middle of it.  Every week or so I see brand new restaurants and stores - places whose decor and prices indicate that they do not seek to attract the clientele of the low-income majority currently living in the neighbourhood. 

A kid from church running through the park, pre-V6A condos

As most of you know, I co-pastor a church that meets in a park on Union Street, in the Chinatown sub-district of the DTES.  We chose that location because many of our church members live in Solheim Place, a social housing building for families directly across the street from this park.  (This location also has an interesting history of gentrification and displacement in the 1960s, which I'll explain in one of the next posts in this series.)  During our first summer there, four years ago, there were two big holes next to the Solheim building, where two new condo developments were slated to go in: Ginger and V6A.  Over the next couple years, the condos were completed, and an influx of middle-income and high-income people moved in.

Douglas at work (photo from http://scoutmagazine.ca)

A couple low-income businesses on the ground level of this block of Union Street closed their doors for good as the condos were being completed, including a barber named Douglas who did $9 haircuts.  He was especially popular among the low-income Chinese seniors in the neighbourhood.  A friend tells me that the owner of that property increased the rent until the barber had to leave, and sold it (presumably for a great price) to new owners.

These new owners had the idea to consult the neighbourhood about what kind of business they wanted there, saying it "reduces risk for business investment, and provides added pressure for the business to act accountably in the neighbourhood."  They posted their web address on the vacant store window, asking people to vote in their online poll.  And lots of people did.  Well, people who regularly use computers and the internet, so... maybe not so many Chinese seniors and low-income people.  Eventually the idea of a grocery store and eatery won out, and that space became Harvest Community Foods, which the condo dwellers (and others passing through on the bike route) seem to really enjoy.

This is where gentrification gets complex and messy.  The thing is, there is a lot to like about Harvest Foods.  They sell organic, seasonal, local food.  They purchase from small Vancouver businesses with sustainable practices.  They buy produce from SOLEfoods, a DTES community garden organization that employs people in the neighbourhood, including someone from our church.  They've given money to Union Gospel Mission and are about to fundraise for the local school lunch program.  They have a few lower-priced items.  They actually tried to do some kind of neighbourhood consulting, which is more than you can say for most gentrifying businesses.  I've been there twice, and both times the staff were extremely friendly, even giving me and my friend a slice of pie for free.  I'm sure they would gladly welcome my low-income church friends from Solheim Place, were they to show up.  But the fact remains that none of my church friends can afford the quality groceries at Harvest Foods on a welfare budget of $26 a week for food.  I would wager that the barrier for them is even subtler than price - they do not feel that it is a space that's for them, that is catering to them.  And Douglas, the low-income barber who cut their hair, was kicked out to make space for it.  But I honestly believe no one meant any harm by it - in fact, the good people at Harvest Foods may have no idea that there have been any negative impacts.

Life & Color Salon, 233 Union St.

There is a new hairdresser on the block.  Last June, three doors down from Harvest Foods, Life & Color salon opened its doors.  But if the Chinese seniors still want haircuts, they'll have to shell out $40-75 from their $610 total monthly income.



I will return to this Union Street case study over the next few weeks and months, as I deconstruct some of the justifications for gentrification, and as I ask how Christians in particular should or could respond to gentrification.  Please stick with me!

Mental Health and the Church - 5 Tips for Pastors & Friends

I'm a little late getting back to this two-part series on Mental Illness and the Church, based on the class I took at Regent in May called "Darkness is my Only Companion."  Go here to read part 1: Top 5 Things That Surprised Me. 

Mental illness is in the news because of the tragic shootings in Connecticut yesterday.  Although I've seen nothing confirming that the gunman suffered from a particular mental illness, and I worry about the stigmatization of all mentally ill people as potentially dangerous to society, I welcome the discussion about how best to care for people with mental illnesses.

In this post I want to give some advice for pastors and friends seeking to love and support people who struggle with mental illness.  This would obviously be better written by someone who is actually struggling with mental illness, but I'll do my best to pass on what I heard from those in my class.

5 great ways to love & support mentally ill friends

1. Actively fight against the stereotyping, belittling, marginalization and stigmatization of mentally ill people.

Mental illness is incredibly stigmatized in our society.  The mentally ill are seen either as weak people who should work harder to deal with their issues and be normal, or as dangerous people to be feared, locked up, or at least avoided.  This second one is exacerbated by works of fiction - how many evil antagonists do you know who aren't portrayed as at least a little bit "crazy"? - but also by the stories that tend to get picked up by news media.  It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the reporting of the Sandy Hook tragedy.  In reality, people with mental illnesses are more likely to be victims of violent crime than to be perpetrators of these crimes, because their ability to react quickly in self-protective ways can be impaired.  These debilitating stigmas (stigmata?) have made their way into the church, for reasons I'll examine below.  And yet I think if the church were to seriously examine its own heroes and saints, I think they'd find it plausible that a lot of them struggled with mental illness. Jeremiah?  St. Francis?  I say this because I also believe some mentally ill people may actually be more aware of the spiritual realm, and more in touch with the mystery of God, although discernment between helpful and harmful visions and spirits may take years to develop.  Whether or not these people are prophetic, they deserve dignity and respect simply because they are made in the image of God.  We talked a lot in class about how Jesus clothed the Gerasene demoniac after freeing him from his demons.  How can we figuratively "clothe" and protect the dignity of those we know for whom mental illness is a daily reality?

Some ideas - let's jump on this bandwagon and "call BS" on the ways youth with mental illnesses are bullied and isolated.  Let's follow John Franklin Stephens' lead and inform people when they're using words that wound and belittle.  My personal challenge?  Root out the word "crazy" from my vocabulary.  I use it startlingly often. 

2. Remind your friends that our brains can be ill while our souls are well.

What's the difference between your brain, your mind, your soul, and your "self"?  We may all have different ways of distinguishing between these concepts, with varying degrees of overlap.  The brain is perhaps easiest to define, because it's a tangible bodily organ.  But while the "mind," "soul," and "self" all involve some functioning of our brain, they are also broader and more abstract, describing our consciousness and our ability to relate to others, including God.  Although we sometimes talk in the church as though we're easily divisible into bodies and souls, we are not.  We are whole, complex beings. 

Mental illness is something that happens in the body, in hormones and brain pathways.  Sometimes it's triggered by an event that touches the spirit, like an intense experience of loss or grief.  Sometimes it has spiritual side effects, such as an altered sense of self, or a diminished ability to sense God's presence.  Not feeling God, or not feeling joy or hope, is an awful experience, but it doesn't automatically mean you're outside of relationship with God, or that your soul is causing your mental illness.  Even though our bodies and souls overlap, and even though we tend to associate faith with our emotions and thoughts, having a mental illness doesn't mean your soul is sick any more than having lung cancer means your soul is sick.  It doesn't mean you are possessed or that God has given up on you.  As my professor writes, "The soul, as the self in relation to God, continues healthy in anyone as long as that person is in Christ, relating to and witnessing to God" (101).  We should also affirm that it's possible for humans to have a sick souls in all sorts of ways that have nothing to do with mental illness.

Having said all this, it's still necessary for people to figure out how to engage with God in the midst of their mental illness.  So, we need to...

3. Bear their burdens, pray for them, and listen to their "dangerous" questions.

We are not called to offer advice or lectures, but to be present, to listen to their experience and to sit with them as they wrestle with pain and confusion.  Why am I sick?  Why does anyone suffer?  Did God do this, or allow this?  If so, why?  to test me?  punish me?  humble me?  teach me?  Is there meaning in my illness?  As Justin Lee pointed out in his new book "Torn," we need to remember that Job, in the Old Testament, asked similar questions, and his friends did quite well at supporting him... until they opened their mouths.  We must be slow to speak, quick to listen, and always committed to pray for our friends. 

The community of faith is crucial in these situations.  We must learn to lament together, to weep with those who weep.  But are also able to hold onto faith and express hope when our friends' illnesses prevent them from doing so.  We can let them lean on our faith, especially in times of corporate worship.  In a journal entry, my professor explained why she continued attending church and praying the liturgy with her congregation, even in her darkest moments: "I need to wrap my tongue around the gracious words of others, in hopes that their words will nourish my soul, somehow sink in and sprout into trees of righteousness, into songs of hope. Because I have no words of gratitude in me, only shame at my absolute hardness of heart." (87)

We can offer our presence when our friends are in hospital.  My professor suggested that when people are in the psych ward, we should visit, but keep our visits to 15 minutes at most, since they can be more draining difficult than we realize.  When she visits people, she asks them a few questions about how they are doing, offers to read a psalm, and to pray, and then she leaves and visits again after a week.

It's also important to be present and attentive to the family members of people with mental illnesses, offering practical support - e.g. meals, babysitting, retreat time. 

4. Persevere in love, and you could be part of changing their brains.

There are many things we cannot do. Most of us do not have the expertise to lead people through therapy or prescribe medication, which is why it is crucial to refer friends to psychiatrists and therapists if they are not already in touch with them.  Pastors are not adequate substitutes for these trained professionals.  However, there is something I learned that underlines why friends and pastors are so important.  That something is neuroplasticity.

 

 It's a beautiful thing, the neurological adaptability - the pliability - of adult brains.  A gracious, God-given example of redemption and transformation, I believe.  In the womb and in early childhood, our brains are at their most adaptable stage, developing circuits and patterns, pathways between brain regions, ways of doing things and reacting to stimuli.  Scientists used to think that after childhood, our brains were static and could not change.  But studies of stroke and brain damage victims have shown that brains can adapt well into adulthood.  Brains can re-wire themselves to adapt to new circumstances, creating new neurons, new pathways, and new ways of reacting.  Positive stimulation through rewarding activities and environments of love and care over the long term will actually create new thought patterns and re-wire brains.  More research is needed, but this suggests that our long-term friendships with mentally ill people may improve their experience of life to the extent of contributing to altered patterns in their brain.  Through long-term love, we may be able do things that psychiatrists and therapists cannot even do.  I find this incredibly hopeful. 

5. Call up Sanctuary and have them come do a workshop or seminar at your church.

Sanctuary is a Vancouver-based ministry co-directed and founded by my former colleague Sharon Smith.  They come alongside churches in order to "create awareness of mental illness, improve understanding of the mental health recovery journey, and facilitate caring activities to meet the needs of people living with mental illnesses and their families."  Sharon has taught me much of what I know about mental illness, and I believe she and her colleague have much to teach the church as a whole.  I highly recommend contacting them, especially if there are people in your church who are in need of care, or wanting the church to understand their journey with mental illness.

Mental Health and the Church - Top 5 Things that Surprised Me

It's been about five months since I've written... I'm a bit of a blogging failure this year.  But I've had this one in the works for a long time now, so I thought I'd finish it off and get it out there.

One of the best things about being a graduate of Regent College is getting to go back and audit classes at half the price.  Last May I audited a class called "Darkness is my Only Companion," with a rather bleak title taken from Psalm 88.  The class was about mental illness and pastoral care, which definitely falls into the "need-to-know" category for me in my work!  In fact, during the two weeks of the class, I had two friends hospitalized for suicidal tendencies brought on by bipolar disorder and depression.

The class was taught by Kathryn Greene-McCreight, an Episcopal priest from New Hampshire who has bipolar disorder.  Her life experience was such a rich source of learning, as were the in-class discussions with my classmates, who included people living with mental illness, people who grew up with a mentally ill parent, people who had children or siblings or friends with mental illnesses, chaplains, prison workers, pastors, and medical professionals.


I'd like to write two posts about things I learned or was reminded of during the class.  Next week, I'll write a post for those seeking to be good pastors and friends of people with mental illnesses.  But first, in this post, I'll go over some the top 5 general facts about mental illness that struck me or surprised me.  (I'm swallowing my pride and revealing my general ignorance!)


1. Many mental illnesses run in families.

Before the class, I had no idea that there was any genetic aspect to mental illness.  My prof talked about studies that have been done on people with the three major illnesses (depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia).  Children who have one parent with a mood disorder (depression or bipolar) have a 15-30% chance of developing a mood disorder, and if both parents have a mood disorder, the child's risk factor jumps to 50-75%.  Children with a schizophrenic parent have 5-15% chance of developing schizophrenia, and that risk also jumps to 75% if both parents are schizophrenic.

Having said that, mental illness is by no means strictly a genetic phenomenon.  A study of identical twins showed that if one twin was schizophrenic, the other twin only had a 50% chance of also being schizophrenic.  Even though they had the same DNA, in half of the cases, the genes for schizophrenia were only triggered in one twin.  It seems that the presence of inner stressors (e.g. physical trauma and illness) and exterior stressors (e.g. poverty, isolation, abuse, drug use) are very crucial factors in determining whether someone's genetic potential for mental illness will actually reveal itself in the person's life.

2. The major mental illnesses have no cure.

For whatever reason, this fact struck me like none other in the class.  I think I'd always thought that mental illnesses could go away eventually, or at least go into remission, allowing the sufferer to live a relatively normal life.  In fact, major mental illnesses require lifelong management and care, like diabetes.  They can be managed, but they will not go away.  This is one of the overwhelming and sobering aspects of being diagnosed.

The search for a cure continues, but mental illnesses are among the most complex of all diseases, with a variety of environmental and genetic factors, and the research isn't as well funded as other less-stigmatized diseases.


3. While the major mental illnesses are incurable, medication and therapy do help, especially in combination.

My professor was especially good at talking about this, since she's tried just about everything to manage her bipolar.  Through literally years of trial and error, she and her doctor have found a mixture of medications that work for her.  However, as she puts it, bipolar medication "tends to create a ceiling but not a floor."  That is, it helps contain the high (manic) episodes, but the low (depressive) periods are less responsive to medication, and she often has to ride them out.

The side effects of medication are also a constant challenge for people with mental illness, especially when these medications are taken constantly over a lifetime: changes in weight, nausea, headaches, drowsiness, restlessness, confusion, seizures, heart problems... My prof had a stroke recently, and her doctors believe it was her bipolar medication that made her prone to strokes at such a young age.  Medication is a life-saver for many sufferers, but it is a long road to finding the right mix, and the side effects and health risks remain.

Humans are not only chemical creatures, but also relational creatures, which is why my professor recommended regular therapy alongside medication.  Therapists listen and help talk through strategies for living with and managing the effects of the illness.

4. Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is used effectively today, and is much different than what we see in the movies.

This really surprised me.  I'd assumed ECT (aka "shock therapy") was an inhumane and now-banned quasi-torture performed by doctors who were a bit sadistic and didn't have a good grasp of mental illness.  (I watch too many movies.) 

Nope.  Turns out those doctors actually had a pretty good grasp of mental illness, and they've refined the procedure to make it less... torturous.  These days, patients are put to sleep before the procedure, and the electricity is targeted directly to the brain, so there are no bodily convulsions beyond a slight toe wiggle or eyelash flutter.  The shock to the brain acts like a "reset" switch, and can be more effective than medication.  For people suffering with depression, antidepressants are effective about 50% of the time, but ECT is effective 75-90% of the time.  It can, however, have side effects, like memory loss and confusion.  There's a great TED talk about ECT here.


5. Most people who attempt or commit suicide do not actually want to die, they just want their pain to end.

Pretty self-explanatory, but it was a good reminder for me.  Other suicide-related facts that surprised me:
- Males are four times more likely to commit suicide than females, but suicide attempt rates are 3-6 times higher for females than for males.
- In the USA (and probably in Canada too), a person is about 50% more likely to kill themselves than to be killed by someone else.
- More than 90% of people who commit suicide have a diagnosable mental illness.
- Talking about suicide with someone who is suicidal actually decreases their risk of completing suicide, so long as it is not discussed in a joking or glorifying way.


Those were my Top 5 general-knowledge-type lessons from the class.  Stay tuned for ideas about how pastors and friends can helpfully interact with people who struggle with mental illness.

Truth & Reconciliation - What does Reconciliation Look Like?

This is my fifth and last post in a series of blogs I'm writing on my experience attending the Truth & Reconciliation event in Victoria last weekend. The Truth & Reconciliation Commission in Canada addresses the Indian Residential School system that existed between 1840 - 1996 (see their website for more information). If you haven't read my introductory blog entry, you can read it here first. Here is the second post on being a witness. Here is the third post, with stories from survivors. Here's the fourth post, on apologies.

This last post has been a long time coming... sorry for the month-long hiatus! I've had a lot of other things on my plate, but this question has been at the back of my mind the whole time: What does reconciliation between First Nations people and the Church look like?

To help me process that question, I returned to a powerful book I read several years ago, Exclusion and Embrace by Miroslav Volf. Volf is a theologian whose reflections on God and life have been significantly influenced by his experience of war in his homeland, Croatia (former Yugoslavia).

Relationship

My first thought is that reconciliation can happen on both the macro and micro levels. We will need to figure out how to seek reconciliation as large groups and communities, but some of the most challenging and meaningful work will happen on the grassroots level of individual relationships between First Nations people and Christians. Which means that we need to seek out these relationships with one another, and do the hard and rewarding work of learning to love each other. First Nations Christians may be helpful by acting as bridges between their people and the Church. However we should be careful not to place all the responsibility for initiating and maintaining relationships on First Nations Christians, knowing that they too will likely need space to process their own pain and the pain of their people.

Taking responsibility

In my last post, I wrote about apologies, and how we in the Church often seem to fail at them. So a start toward reconciliation might be figuring out how to own up to what we've done. I was recently in a conversation about residential schools with some other pastors.  Some were lamenting the fact that First Nations people continue to harp on the Church and to emphasize only the bad parts of the schools, when (according to them) many people groups at the time used corporeal punishment as an acceptable form of discipline for children. One of them lamented, "The First Nations people are crucifying us!" To which my co-pastor Jodi insightfully responded, "But as followers of Christ, we should not shy away from that experience!" (That's my paraphrase - she said it better!).

Jesus commanded us to take up our cross and follow Him. Of course, the Church's "being crucified" in the acknowledgment of her responsibility and shame around residential schools is different from Christ's crucifixion, because Christ was wrongfully accused, and his death brought supernatural redemption. Still, as a Church following a crucified Savior, we should never shun the humbling reminders of our sinfulness and our continual need for mercy and sanctification. Attempts to distract, shift blame, or point out the parallel wrongs of other groups are only taking us back to that embarrassing scene between God, Adam and Eve in Genesis 3. We must be willing to own up to what the Church has done, even though we weren't directly involved as teachers in a residential school, and even if our particular denomination wasn't directly involved in the schools (many First Nations people don't make the denominational distinctions we do - they see Christians as a unified group). In our relationships and our communities, we may find situations in which it would be helpful and healing to apologize vicariously for the sins of other Christians, and we should do this willingly and very prayerfully.

Restitution

But there is more required of us than apologies and responsibility. I asked my Gitxsan friend Hector what the Church could do to seek reconciliation with First Nations people, and he said: "Stop saying sorry and start doing something."

In his book, Volf talks about Zacchaeus, whose version of "doing something" was paying back four times as much as he stole: "A genuine repentance of the oppressors will lead to the “injustice” of a superabundant restitution, which seeks to offset the injustice of the original violation" (118). No restitution will be able to "pay for" or "erase" the wrongs done, but it will contribute to reconciliation.

Some would say restitution was offered to Canada's residential school survivors in the form of $1.9 billion dollars in compensation, split between survivors after the settlement agreement in 2006. However, this was legally mandated restitution, rather than a "superabundant restitution" offered freely as in Zacchaeus' story. Also, it merely followed suit with the charity model we often employ with First Nations people and other marginalized people in our society. Many of my friends in the DTES who received this compensation money readily admitted to using a large portion of it to fund their addictions, patterns of pain-numbing they've been stuck in since they suffered at the schools.

By saying we need to "do something," my friend Hector emphasized action - costly action - but also careful action, action with attention to long-term consequences. Sadly, the compensation money given out over the last 5 years did not bring justice or healing to First Nations people, and did little to bring reconciliation. As a Church, we are called to be more creative and find just ways to act that reach deep into the core of the problem and don't contribute to the perpetuation of cycles of pain & abuse.

Some Christians have already thought of creative ways to offer restitution. I've recently read about churches in California and in Saskatchewan who are seeking reconciliation with First Nations groups around the issue of land claims. These churches are actually buying land and giving it back to First Nations people!

If we want to bring restitution for the sins of residential schools, perhaps we could focus our attention on education in First Nations communities. First Nations children are the fastest-growing demographic in Canada, but their graduation rate is only half of that of the rest of Canadian students. Recent reports found huge funding shortfalls for education in First Nations communities, despite the fact that access to education is a right named in many of the treaties governing them. At least fifty reserves need new schools but have no funding to build them. This year's federal budget only covers half of what the AFN says is required to address these shortfalls.  Perhaps, as part of its restitution, the Church could commit to providing First Nations people with the resources they need and deserve so they can educate their next generation.

Nelson Mandela, speaking about apartheid injustices in South African, said, "If someone steals my pen and then asks me to forgive him, unless he returns my pen, the sincerity of his contrition and confession will be considered nil. Confession, forgiveness, and reparation, wherever feasible, form part of a continuum." Unfortunately, we have a long way to go... Jodi (always full of wisdom!) observed that right now, not only have we "not returned the pen" to First Nations people, many of us in Canada are actually mocking them, looking down on them, and blaming them for not having a pen! We emphasize addictions, poverty, suicide, and lack of education among First Nations people without acknowledging our role in the pain that contribute to these realities. Another part of our restitution might be lobbying for changes in curriculum so that the history of residential schools and colonialism (and their lasting effects) is taught to every Canadian student, so that potential prejudices are addressed early on.

The Role of First Nations People in Healing & Reconciliation

Of course, First Nations people have a significant and challenging role in this process of reconciliation, too. Most of Exclusion and Embrace is directed toward the victims, spelling out the hard and risky work of forgiveness, of working through anger, leaving vengeance with a perfectly just God, and gradually becoming willing to embrace and welcome the very people who have made you suffer.  When I attended the Truth & Reconciliation event in Victoria, I was amazed to hear the willingness of so many survivors to forgive the Church, and to enter into relationship with the God who was so misrepresented by their teachers.  This can only be interpreted as a miraculous work of the Spirit.

One rather controversial thing that Volf says is that victims need to repent of their sins. Let me quote a long but very profound passage from his book:

"Jesus called to repentance not simply those who falsely pronounced sinful what was innocent and sinned against their victims, but the victims of oppression themselves. It will not do to divide Jesus' listeners neatly into two groups and claim that for the oppressed repentance means new hope whereas for the oppressors it means radical change. Nothing suggests such a categorizing of people in Jesus' ministry, though different people ought to repent of different kinds of sins. The truly revolutionary character of Jesus' proclamation lies precisely in the connection between the hope he gives to the oppressed and the radical change he requires of them. Though some sins have been imputed to them, other sins of theirs were real; though they suffered at the sinful hand of others, they also committed sins of their own. It is above all to them that he offered divine forgiveness. Significantly enough, it is also they, not the self-righteous members of the establishment, that responded to his offer. For as a rule, the kingdom of God enters the world through the back door of servants' shacks, not through the main gate of the masters' mansions" (114).

What are the sins of the victims?  Volf says that victims are very likely to mimic the behavior of their oppressors, to let anger and bitterness fester inside of them, and to excuse and fail to take responsibility for their reactive behavior. "Without repentance for these sins, the full human dignity of victims will not be restored and needed social change will not take place" (117).


One of the most profound expressions of reconciliation I saw at the Truth & Reconciliation event in Victoria was the reconciliation between a First Nations woman and her adult daughter. The woman was sharing her experience of residential school, and near the end of her painful account, she introduced everyone to her daughter, who was sitting behind her. She said she wanted her daughter to be there to hear her story, so that she would know what was at the root of her mom's anger. She acknowledged that she had been a horrible mother and had chosen to take her pain out on her daughter, beating her the same way she had been beaten at the residential school. She wondered aloud if this was part of the reason why her daughter was attracted to men who abused her. She apologized and embraced her daughter, saying "there is still some gentleness in me... Hopefully I will leave all this shit in this room and learn to live without guilt or anger." I was moved deeply by this interaction, and I think the Church could learn a lot from this example of humble repentance.

Hope

One reminder that I found sobering and helpful in Exclusion and Embrace is that the final reconciliation will not come until Christ returns. We must not expect that we will achieve full healing and fully restored relationships in this world. What Volf suggests is that we ask ourselves "what resources we need to live in peace in the absence of the final reconciliation... to achieve a nonfinal reconciliation in the midst of the struggle against oppression" (109). But Christ will come, and therein lies our hope!

I pledge to continue to work toward peace and "non-final reconciliation" as we wait together for Christ to come, to liberate the oppressed from the suffering of their oppression, and to liberate the oppressors from their injustice (23).

What do you think reconciliation looks like?  Leave a comment with your thoughts!

Truth & Reconciliation - How (Not) to Apologize

This is the fourth in a series of blogs I'm writing on my experience attending the Truth & Reconciliation event in Victoria last weekend.  The Truth & Reconciliation Commission in Canada addresses the Indian Residential School system that existed between 1840 - 1996 (see their website for more information).  If you haven't read my introductory blog entry, you can read it here first.  Here is the second post on being a witness.  Here is the third post, with stories from survivors.


I've been pondering the reactions of friends and my own reaction to the quotes I posted in my last blog entry.  Seeing them all listed together was rather overwhelming.  

Here's my main thought... insofar as they separated kids from their families to try to make them less Indian, the residential schools represented an unjust system, a program of cultural genocide.  But over and above this cultural genocide, there was also an extremely disturbing amount of child abuse at the schools.  And why was that?  That's the question one of my best friends asked me - why was there so much abuse, particularly sexual abuse?  It wasn't a few isolated cases, and it wasn't only the celibate Catholic priests - it happened in multiple schools run by different denominations.  The abuse was systemic; it was endemic to the school system.  I think the prevalence of abuse had something to do with the fact that these children were generally seen as uncivilized savages.  They were lesser humans, in a separate category from white children.  It was this faulty belief that somehow legitimized the abuse for the many of the teachers, and by perpetually abusing the kids, they sustained and reinforced their belief that the kids were worth very little.  It was a twisted, self-reinforcing system, an "institutionalized pedophilia," as one of the judges in the settlement put it.  

As a Christian white person listening to all these survivor stories, I had the overwhelming urge to do something or say something to express my horror and remorse.  I was tentatively hoping that this kind of thing might happen during the "Expressions of Reconciliation."  This was the time in the weekend when representatives of churches and other organizations gave speeches in front of the whole gathering.  Some were apologizing, and some were not.  (One thing I learned that weekend is that the word "apologize" is a legal term, and carries the responsibility to make reparations, as opposed to a word like "regret.")  Yes, words alone can be cheap, but words can also be very powerful and healing, so I knew it would be important for these representatives to choose their words carefully.


Honestly, I will humbly admit that I have no idea how to properly apologize (or even "express regret") for something as vast and complex and systemic as the residential schools.  I realize that it makes things much harder when you're apologizing on behalf of a group, and you do not have free rein over what you say.  But I've got to admit that I learned more during these speeches about what I would not say than I did about what I would say, if given the chance.  So without further ado, I will categorize these observations for you in a little section I'd like to call...


How NOT to Apologize


- Come with self-serving goals (other than reconciliation).  By far one of the strangest "expressions of reconciliation" was from BC Hydro (our province's electricity provider).  BC Hydro did not participate in any way in the Indian Residential Schools.  With nothing to apologize for, the guy in the suit ended up bragging about how BC Hydro brought twenty of their top employees to this Victoria event to volunteer, and how they want to understand what happened so they can better do business with First Nations people.  Don't get me wrong, I'm all for listening and learning, but the whole thing came off not as an expression of reconciliation, but as a promotional spot, a weird advertisement for BC Hydro.  My friend Laurel leaned over to me and said, "I wonder if most people hear the church apologies with the same cynicism we hear this one with, asking 'what's in it for them?'"


- Encourage the people you hurt to "focus on remembering the good times."  Yes, someone did say this, and yes, I almost left the room.  This particular priest's version of an "expression of reconciliation" was to spend most of his time talking about the residential school he worked at, and how it was a wonderful, loving home for the majority of the students.  His words were met by shouts of protest from the survivors in the crowd.  One woman sobbed loudly and uncontrollably through his speech.  I don't doubt that there were good experiences at residential schools.  But reconciliation depends on the church's and government's ability to humbly acknowledge and take responsibility for the horrible experiences, even if they feel they were the exception to the rule.  It is definitely not the offender's role to determine on what experiences the victims should focus.


- Don't show any emotion.  After all the tears that flowed during the survivor statements, the lack of emotion during the apologies was particularly evident.  The apologizers often used emotion-laden language, but there was not a single tear, not a single embodied expression of remorse.  One denominational representative said "I hang my head in shame," but he was not, in fact, hanging his head!  Not that I would have wanted these speakers to force emotions that weren't there... but why weren't the emotions there?  Were the speakers having trouble identifying with the actual perpetrators?  Were they too distant from what had happened?  Or do we North Americans just suck at embodying remorse?  We don't have a lot of culturally appropriate expressions of sorrow - we don't rip our clothing or sit in ashes, like the Jews did.  All I know is that as I sat listening to these "apologies," my heart started beating quickly and I felt like I had to do something drastic with my whole body, with my entire being, to show the depth of what I felt.  I wanted to lay face down on the ground in the aisle.  But I didn't even know what that would communicate.


- Draw connections between their pain and your own.  One religious leader began his speech by saying that during his time listening to the survivors' stories, he was struck especially by the parts about losing and being separated from family members, because his own mother had just passed away.  I know that he was trying to personalize his apology and was seeking some common ground with the survivors, but because he didn't adequately qualify what he said, he seemed to equate the very disparate experiences of being stolen as a young child from your parents' home, and having your mother die of old age.  It's always dangerous to say (or imply) "I know how you felt."  


- Congratulate yourself for how far you've come.  This was one of the more subtle things that happened.  A couple "expressions of reconciliation" were dominated by "expressions of how good we've already been doing at reconciling."  One church showed a news report about a reconciliation event they attempted with local First Nations bands.  Another denominational rep talked about the Aboriginal programs and bursaries they'd been offering at their seminary, and gave two gifts to the Commission - a mug and a brochure from the seminary.  It was good to hear these hopeful stories of progress, just like it was good to hear stories of healing from survivors.  But like the survivors, the churches have to spend the majority of their airtime at these events courageously telling the truth about what happened, rather than rushing into the healing part.  And come on... a mug and a brochure?  Really?


- Shift the focus to another offending party.  One church representative said he wanted to finish his speech with an important question.  We were all on the edges of our seats, wondering what question he would leave us with - would it be "What can we do now to encourage reconciliation?"  or perhaps "Do you accept our apology?"  No.  His closing question was... "Where is the government?"  He was pointing out the fact that all the church representatives had given speeches, but no one from the government had come to the Victoria event to say anything.  Valid point, but this constant blame-shifting has already driven residential school survivors crazy.  The church and government sound like children trying to convince their mother that not they, but their sibling, who is the real culprit.  It's time to grow up and own what's ours.


- Act like all the bad stuff is over now.  This was the most consistent problem with the speeches.  Every speaker talked about looking forward to walking together with First Nations people into a bright future.  But no one acknowledged that systemic injustice against First Nations people continues to this day in Canada, and that all of us, especially we Church people, have a responsibility to stand up and do something about it.  

I'll talk more about this last concept in my next post... but I have to think about it some more first!

Truth & Reconcilation - Listening to Survivors

This is the third in a series of blogs I'm writing on my experience attending the Truth & Reconciliation event in Victoria last weekend.  The Truth & Reconciliation Commission in Canada addresses the Indian Residential School system that existed between 1840 - 1996 (see their website for more information).  If you haven't read my introductory blog entry, you can read it here first.  Here is the second post on being a witness.

At the Truth and Reconciliation event, survivors were invited to share their lived experiences at residential school in one of three ways.  They could do so in a private, one-on-one session with a trained statement-taker.  Or, they could give a public statement, either in a sharing circle or a sharing panel.  The sharing circle was a bit more intimate and flexible, allowing survivors to sit facing one another and to interact, while the panel was more formal and drew larger crowds.  In total, 158 statements were taken in Victoria.

I'd like to share some quotes from the many statements I was privileged to hear last weekend, since (as I wrote about last time) I feel a responsibility to bear witness.  The limitation in doing this in written form is that you don't get to hear the emotion behind the statements.  The commissioners stressed that the conference was a "tear-friendly" zone, and that's a good thing, because everyone cried - those giving the statements, and those listening - everyone except the man who confessed he could no longer cry, which you'll read about below.  During every session, health support workers walked around, handing out kleenexes and collecting them in bags.  After the sessions, as you left the room, you were invited to wash your face in a tear-collecting canoe-shaped basin.  The pain the survivors carried and brought to the surface during these sharing circles and panels was palpable and immense.

Just as a warning, some of the quotes I will share below describe abuse and may be disturbing.  Also note that I have tried to quote the survivors as accurately as possible, using their wording and phrasing, but these are not exact quotes.

"At residential school, I kept asking, 'Why would my mother abandon me?  Why would she give me up?'  I got all this money from the legal settlement, but I'd rather have my mother back.  I'm 52 years old, and I'm still a lost little boy."

"When I started day school at age 5, all I could speak was Kwak'wala.  My teacher beat the language out of me.  When I was caught speaking Kwak'wala to my cousin, she made me bend over a desk in front of all the students, she pulled up my dress, and she spanked my bare bottom with a leather strap.  From then on I never wore dresses; I only ever wore pants to school.  If I was caught again, I was forced to write 'I must only speak English' on the chalkboard one hundred times, and the number doubled each time I was caught... To this day I can't speak Kwak'wala.  Sure, I can understand it, but when I try to speak it, it won't come."

"We were always thirsty at St. Michael's.  I remember drinking water from the back tank of the toilet...  I tried to run away once, with my friend.  We were found, brought back, and beaten...  I used to go down to the fence at the waterfront and look through.  I was waiting for my father to paddle up to the shore, to take me home.  He never came."

"I feel unworthy, being a survivor, knowing that most of my friends died, either at the school, or shortly after, because of addictions.  I was molested and raped, like the other boys at the school.  It took 15-20 years of work with a therapist to pry this out of me.  In the meantime, I was callous.  I beat my wife like all the other drunk Indians."

"I was attending public school in my community when I was taken, in the middle of class, and brought to residential school.  They targeted me because my father was a chief.  My mom didn't know what had happened.  She searched for me for three days.  My residential school was on Kuper Island.  We called it Alcatraz, because us kids couldn't hope to escape from an island...  I was sexually abused at that school from when I was ten years to twelve years young.  I have post-traumatic stress disorder, and I never know when I'll be triggered.  I'll walk with these scars forever."

"The day I was taken to residential school, I clung to my mother like glutchum - like a mussel on a rock.  It's the last time I saw her.  She died while I was there.  We weren't allowed to go to her funeral.  We weren't even allowed to cry.  The loneliness has never ever left me."

"It wasn't an education.  The only thing we learned was how to survive... Since Kuper Island Residential School, I can't cry.  I tried to cry when my daughter died, but all that came out was this unearthly sound.  Even now, even today, I can't cry.  For years, because of the abuse, I couldn't stand being touched, even by my granddaughters... but now, thanks to God, I can hug them... There were many ways I tried to deal with the pain.  By grade 9, I was into alcohol.  Now both my remaining sons are alcoholics.  I pray for them."

"There was a fence separating the girls from the boys.  One day I got caught trying to talk to my brother through the fence.  The teachers tied me up, hog-tied me, hands and feet, in a corner.  They accused me of flirting.  I kept repeating, 'That's my brother.'  That's when I learned to disappear into the woodwork, to hide, to blend in, just to survive."

"During my whole adult life, I knew something was wrong.  I'd fly off the handle.  Get drunk.  It wasn't until three years ago that I figured it out, when I was on the internet, and I saw the picture of a priest who worked at my residential school.  It all came rushing back to me, everything I'd pushed down... how two priests raped me on the table, in the kitchen, on a regular basis.  They took away my soul... The evil lives inside all of us who were there, not in our hearts, but deep in our bellies.  We get heavy."

"The teachers told me I was nothing but a worthless, useless, stinking Indian - they said that's why my parents dumped me there... Our protectors turned out to be our tormentors... A lot of things happened in those school bathrooms... I had to pretend like I was the only one it was happening to, even though I saw it in the eyes of the other kids, too.  I would be drugged with wine after dinner, and I'd wake up in the middle of the night in bed, without my underwear or pajama bottoms."

"The nuns and priests degraded us, made us feel like we were nothing... They didn't nourish us with love, affection or praise.  So I never learned how to do that for my kids.  I never expressed love or praise to them.  Now that I'm older, I know better.  Now I never leave home without telling them 'I love you.'"

-------------

Some people who gave statements were not themselves former students of residential schools, but were children or grandchildren of residential school students.  They were called "intergenerational survivors," and they shared how their parents' and grandparents' experiences had affected their families.  Here are a couple of examples:

"My parents attended residential school.  They bottled up all their pain.  It tore apart our family - they drank, and couldn't take care of us.  My siblings were apprehended and put in foster care.  Since our parents drank, we thought it was ok... I have so much remorse when it comes to my own children and how I treated them.  My granddaughter says she'll never drink.  I want to believe her.  I want to stop the cycle."

"My mother was taken to residential school at age 3.  She never told us any bad things about it - she said it worked for her.  But when I was young, she would regularly wait for me after school with a stick of some sort... when I'd re-gain consciousness, I'd be on my bed without my clothes on, covered in bruises." 

--------------

I won't say much today about these quotes, because they are a lot to digest, and I will comment further in my final post.  I will say that the way I saw these individuals changed so profoundly after I heard them share their experiences.  Their very acts of sharing were so courageous and vulnerable, not to mention the things they endured and the resilience they showed and the healing they continued to seek... every subsequent time I saw them at the conference, it was like seeing a hero.  It's amazing what changes when you learn someone's deepest suffering.

In a few days, I'll write about the apologies and expressions of reconciliation I witnessed.