Why I’ll Walk: Paying attention to how we kill and cage what we can’t face

For the past few years I have been running in a small informal half-marathon organized by local prison abolitionists raising money for groups like Strength in the Circle. This year the timing has not worked out but I wanted to do something. I’m not a big fan of promoting myself doing something ‘hard’ as though that should inspire anyone even less that I would learn something in any way related to the hardships of the people I hope to support. Anywho.

So what I am planning is to camp at Camp Marcedes one night then walk to Stony Mountain Penitentiary where I will camp out near their cemetery (which I happened to notice on Google Maps) and walk home the next day. Walking like writing is one way that I process or metabolize things. I have a strong sense of what we can do as a society to help address the realities that have led to a carceral approach to crime and poverty as well as our abuse of Indigenous populations and Treaty obligations. There are immediate material and economic supports that would make an immediate impact. That being said I also feel that there are larger realities of public apathy, fear, prejudice, internalized and externalized aggression that keep us from the resolve and capacity for change that is needed. There are knots about being human that I believe ultimately require psychic/spiritual/soul /ritual/whatever work. Unless some of us do this work we may never have the capacity for the material and social changes that are needed.

For myself I am trying to learn the disciplines of holding things together that individually and collectively we want to divide. Some realities are hard or uncomfortable and so naturally we will avoid or rationalize them. As a society we know that wealth was founded on land theft, build up through slavery and an explicitly racist economy and laws. Wealth is then concentrated with wealth begetting wealth which gets passed on through inheritance laws. Of course there are always instances of rags to riches and dramatic falls from power but these don’t detract from the overall environment of how wealth works.

My lifestyle barely registers as middle class but I still attribute this to the combination of good health, lack of prejudice, abundance of privilege and perhaps above all a stable social support network that had material and emotional support for my ambitions and challenges. For those of us with such benefit it is tempting to separate our experience from those who struggle and suffer in the same society. I think we try keep these realities separate and justified by the simple ideas of luck and merit. Some have bad luck, some good. Some work harder than others. This allows us varying levels of sympathy and charity but it never holds all our lives together considering that perhaps one experience of success is somehow the function of another’s experience of suffering in our society. So long as we hold success and suffering separately it will be hard to see the world rightly never mind build capacity for the changes that are needed.

So on this walk I simply want to hold the realities of wealth, privilege, safety, violence, fear, greed, abuse, poverty and incarceration together that they might be at work in me shaping my thoughts, developing my posture and directing my actions. I am comfortable calling this prayer which I am also comfortable saying is a practice of paying attention to what matters most. So I hope to pay attention to the scared fire at Camp Marcedes honouring those unjustly murdered who are awaiting their home coming. I plan to walk up Main St and across Selkirk Ave paying attention to our city’s ongoing neglect of its citizens. And then hold those isolated in prison in prayer remembering that as society the best we can do in response harm and suffering is to cage humans.

So please give to organizations like Barnone, Sunshine House, Manitoba Harm Reduction Network, Strength in the Circle but don’t let that be a simple transaction a payment to absolve your conscience. Learn the practices that hold and see our society as a whole knowing it is all connected. Don’t assume the answers advance but learn to gather in places we have banished and neglected and let yourself be changed.

A story of safe-er sites

This week it finally dawned on me that our front yard occasionally functions as a safe-er consumption site. Almost 10 years ago we bought a small church in the West End to be renovated as our home. The exterior looks basically the same and from the beginning many people assumed it was still a church and therefore a quasi-public space. There has always been a trickle of folks knocking on the door or simply sitting on the steps visiting or having a bite to eat. Sometimes I would stop and chat, at times getting into long and interesting conversations. People rarely ask if they can come in and we rarely say yes if they do, though once I had someone come in and share a vision he had which took him at least 20 minutes to tell (he travelled across hell, earth and heaven in it). Often enough I simply let people be if there sitting there.

In almost 10 years we’ve never had an issue other than a bit of garbage left here or there. Well, fine, a number of years back a large deck swing miraculously grew legs and learned to walk. Some mornings I would leave the house and a few things looked moved or out of place. Curiosity getting the better of me I eventually broke down and got some cameras around the house and would occasionally check footage. One day I watched two people from the night before enter our yard. It was the middle of the night and one of them slowly and carefully unscrewed our outdoor lighting (not breaking any) until there was a dark corner where he and his friend, well, I don’t know what they did. I suppose I could complain that he didn’t screw them back in afterwards. Over the years I would find traces of booze, drugs and sex.

Then one morning this spring it was finally warm enough to comfortably have a coffee outside before work. A young woman looking a little worse for wear came in the gate and starting talking. She asked if she could come inside. I said I needed to go to work soon but she could have a seat out here if she wanted. She sat and we talked a little. She said she had to get out of her apartment block. She asked for water. She asked my name. Then she sort of turned away from me. I went back to my reading (Klaus Theweleit’s 1970s and still relevant book on fascist male psychology). After a few minutes I looked up and realized that she appeared to be preparing a needle for injection. This was a first for me in the yard and it felt a little weird but I let her finish. She carefully cleaned up after herself. We wished each other and well and parted ways.

My front yard, it seems, is a bit of an odd space. I still keep the inside of our house fairly restricted though we are open to strangers. Being a former church people seem a little more comfortable just walking in the gate. The simple fence seems to mark it off as not being fully vulnerable to ‘the street’. I have never had to call the police. In fact, when dealing with some people in distress they have actively asked me NOT to call the police. I know other stories and experiences can be different. I’ve been a part of scenarios where de-escalation with physical intervention seems needed (note, I did not say police intervention).

We are failing as a city and we are willing to pin our failure on the struggles of those unnecessarily suffering (discarding them as already dead, zombies as one city councillor recently called without their houses to do drugs). The last I checked the life expectancy of those living close to downtown is nearly 20 years lower than the rest of the city and God knows some of us are skewing this number with life expectancy plummeting even lower when adjusted for income and housing.

The eternal question, what is to be done? There is sound research, policies and laws that could make a massive difference in people’s lives but to be honest I can’t imagine we will move the needle on any of this until we accept, understand and embrace an understanding of peace and wellbeing that is tied up in the peace and wellbeing of everyone. There is no political will in the face of the demands for personal profit and security that holds out poverty as a fear and threat that keep us from making substantial changes.

I try not to be heavy handed in talking with my 13 yo about these things but he is perceptive enough. One day he talked about the danger there was in other neighbourhoods. I thought maybe he had rose-coloured glasses about the realities of our neighbourhood but I eventually realized what he was talking about. He knew that it was okay for people land up in our yard, take a load off for a bit and carry on but he also realized what would happen if people with few other options landed up on the lawns and front steps of nearly any other neighbourhood in the city. He understood such a person would likely not be safe there. Our entire public discourse as a city is centred around the ‘safety’ of those who are already the safest. We fear and ridicule those who suffer most. Though I didn’t plan it I’m proud of my little plot that might on occasion be a safer-er space for someone else. May we nurture and fight for such places in our hearts and in our city.

Fascist Desire

If civilization imposes such great sacrifices not only on man’s sexuality but on his aggressivity, we can understand better why it is hard for him to be happy in civilization.
Freud, Civilization and its Discontents

I’m increasingly convinced that psychoanalysis is a necessary tool for diagnosing contemporary social and political realities. The ‘right’ tends towards clarity in articulating national values while the ‘left’ prioritizes an idea of inclusivity that can only regard the right’s rejection as ignorant. This remains a huge problem for the center and the left. Those who do not recognize leftist or liberal values are uneducated or greedy.

Positing the reality of an unconscious demands we consider that perhaps not all forces within and around are or can be fully transparent. Drives and desires work at cross and contradictory purposes at times. Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents remains relevant. The existence of society produces a subject that is necessarily conflicted. To enjoy the security and order of society one must constrain personal impulses and desires. One feels threatened at the prospect of an individual free for all and one feels repressed or at least discontent within society. This fundamental antagonism is a thread running through Klaus Theweleit’s Male Fantasies. This work explores the imagery and practices of fascist German soldiers and culture through a largely psychoanalytic frame. This does not mean these soldiers were acting ‘unconsciously’ but that our drives and desires when unexamined can lead violent social forms.

I recently finished volume 1 and was struck by its relevance to the recent ‘convoy’ movement in Canada that has reacted to COVID restrictions and mandates under the banner of ‘freedom’. Again, the movement fit almost perfectly into Freud’s basic paradigm. The convoy movement is most known for organizing large convoys of trucks and tractor-trailers that flow into and around cities. It was this imagery of the movement as ‘enlarged’ through vehicles and the ‘flow’ it creates that tied so closely to Theweleit’s conclusion. Large sections of last few pages can almost stand alone in their commentary on the present moment. A moment which of course includes rising backlash against gender fluidity and change as well as the reaction against collective or socialist alternatives.

Theweleit concludes acknowledging and analysing the attraction of fascist celebrations as ‘symbolic liberation of desires’.

[This is] fascism’s way of depicting the dawn of freedom, a freedom in which the fascist does not have dissolve himself [in the threatening flood effeminate liberalism].

“Deleuze and Guattari are probably right when they suggest in passing that Hitler enabled fascists to have an erection. ‘At last, not to be castrated for once!’ In a ritual that allowed the enis itself (the penis no one had) to be represented in abstract form (the seven columns), the individual, for once, was no longer castrated; he became part of the transcendental phallus that gave meaning to everything.

The imagery here is the large Nazi procession of columns but the imagery of trucks stretched out for miles makes for unnervingly smooth transition.

For the moment at least, he felt privileged to be a stream himself [in the flow of trucks], one small part of an enormous tamed flood. … In the course of the ritual, the fascist came to represent both his own liberated drives and the principle that suppressed them. This inherent contradiction never manifested itself because, during the staging of the ritual, the individual participated in power. … It is far more important to stress the sense of relief, the Utopia of deliverance, which participants in such rituals find: ‘At last I don’t have to hide anymore. . . . At last, I can see and sense that other people feel the same way I do.’

That is how fascism translates internal states into massive, external monuments or ornaments as a canalization system, which large numbers of people flow into; where their desire can flow, at least within (monumentally enlarged) preordained channels; where they can discover that they are not split off and isolated, but that they are sharing the violation of prohibitions with so many others.

Fine, except for one thing: All of that affirmation is theatrical; it never gets beyond representation, the illusion of production. Benjamin is right in saying that fascism may help the masses to express themselves, but that certainly doesn’t help them gain their rights. … No, what fascism allows the masses to express are suppressed drives, imprisoned desires. Fascist masses may portray their desire for deliverance from the social double bind, for lives that are not inevitably entrapping (a la Freud’s C&D), but not their desire for full stomachs. The success of fascism demonstrates that masses who become fascist suffer more from their internal states of being than from hunger or unemployment. Fascism teaches us that under certain circumstances, human beings imprisoned within themselves … would rather break out than fill their stomachs; and their politics may consist in organizing that escape, rather than an economic order that promises future generations full stomachs for life. The utopia of fascism is an edenic freedom from responsibility. … Meanwhile, communists and the left in general still stubbornly refuse to accept fascism’s horrifying proof that the materialism they preach and practice only goes halfway.

We need to account for the non-rational aspects of life. This is not an evaluative statement on reason. Reason can serve as many horrible purposes as noble. We are simply more and other than reasonable. To over emphasize reason is one of our many methods of disavowing the contradictions and antagonisms of being a subject in society. In my view this account gives far greater clarity to the types of impulses and expressions we are seeing today. It shows them as ‘rational’ in relation to disavowed impulses and desires. It shows why these forms are pleasurable but ultimately play into our own oppression. And it helps the left discard persistent ideas of materialism as sufficient in and of itself. Which just feeds into the cycle of calling out the right as ignorant for not seeing it clearly. Further, I would hope these insights would go some way to internal examination of leftist movements and individuals who are not immune to these desires and antagonisms.

Queer Theology and the Church: After the Affirmation (archived videos)

Affirming LGTBQ+ inclusion in the church has been critical and life-giving for many, even as these struggles continue across Christian communities. Yet queer theologian Linn Marie Tonstad has provocatively suggested that arguments for inclusion are among the least interesting theological questions for the life of church. This series will explore how queer theology can lead the church beyond a framework of inclusion and into larger questions of justice and transformation.

Below are the archived videos from this 2022 series

Melanie Kampen – Interrogating Christian theology to be trauma-informed and justice-making in its approach

Tim Wenger and Matthew Froese – Worshipping the (W)holy Other: Queer theology in our hymns and confessions

David Driedger – Undressed or Undone: How sex and holiness change everything

Jude Claude – Queer theology beyond inclusion: An exploration of the work of Marcella Althaus-Reid

Questioning the space not the person: Reorienting the church through queer theology

Last Sunday we began a series on queer theology and the church (info for the series here and video of this session here). The following is my introduction to the series.

Sunday October 30

The question of LGTBQ+ inclusion in the church and society has become increasingly strange for me the more I think about it. On one level, yes, absolutely yes. The church should always be at the work of finding ways to include people in forms of care, dignity and support. We still see active and militant opposition to queer individuals and groups in society and the church.

But inclusion in itself is rarely further examined and sometimes may not even be the best thing but for different reasons then the church has historically thought.

The question of inclusion assumes an existing space to be included into. We can think about inclusion in relation to a house or even this church building. There are still walls and still doors that lock. This in itself is not bad, I don’t think we can or should escape having boundaries, care and safety always require some sort of boundaries.

The question of inclusion has tended to focus on whether someone is worthy to come into the house while neglecting to ask whether the house is worthy to receive guests. Rarely if ever are the house rules interrogated as thoroughly as the potential guest under question.

Did women fight to be included inside the workforce so that we could have more female billionaires and extend more precarious and poorly paid work to both men and women?

By including female pronouns for God did we also dismantle the supremacist and domineering aspects of patriarchal theology?

By working to include more black and Indigenous police officers did we address the systemic racism that fills prisons with black and indigenous inmates?

And by making efforts to include LGTBQ+ individuals in church and society have we also addressed dysfunctional ideals of marriage, gendered expectations of our bodies, dress and actions in public and workplaces, laws and policies that favour particular forms of family, do we offer clear supports for those who suffered these prejudices?

The work of inclusion has brought many meaningful and at times life-saving changes to society. But much of the work exploring and exposing the house rules remains.

On the question of inclusion we are typically presented with what I think can be fairly called the liberal or the conservative option.
The conservative response is to assert that in society and families there are particular roles that can be defined by gender and that gender or orientation itself is in some ways natural, proper or superior whether that is appealed to by science (evolution often plays into these conversations) or ordained by God.

The liberal response will be to say that we can indeed place two brides or two grooms on top of the cake! But so help me there will be cake, and a wedding … and grandkids!! Many liberal forms of inclusion are simply willing include more or different individuals into existing structures of family and gendered expectations.

Without examining the house rules we risk including folks into an unhealthy or even harmful environment.

The yes to inclusion often neglects the reality that you may now have to live in a space
where you feel pressure to conform to a new set of norms,
where you become afraid to welcome certain other people because now you don’t want to rock the boat
where you learn to aspire to the expectations that led you to leave or be kicked out in the first place.
As Jules Gleeson and Elle O’Rourke put it in their introduction to Transgender Marxism the liberal bargain for inclusion often only applies to a select group within transgender expressions; those willing or able to play by the house rules.

While working for inclusion remains an important and ongoing task one thing to hold in front of us as we begin this series is whether the church is able to consider that perhaps its calling, if it has one at all here, is actually to step outside of its house and its rules and simply pay attention to the joys and struggles, the intimacies and abuses around us and within us.

I’m not sure we should start with the assumption we are a great sanctuary of healing and liberation without first practicing mutuality in learning about and from those who have suffered under our house rules; or practicing humility in acknowledging when we hear good news, the gospel, from places neglected or rejected by the church.

Perhaps we will learn that some outside the church long to be included and blessed in the traditional forms of marriage through gender transition or same-sex relationships while others inside the church feel called to explore intimacies and commitment outside the present house rules of the church because the Gospel challenges and questions an unhealthy elevation of the nuclear family.

Like many important expressions queerness is a contested term with varying definitions. Some see in it particular political or social implications while others want to reserve it for specifically sexual expressions but in most cases to be queer is to be willing or be forced to exist outside the house rules, rules that have denied something necessary to being human.

Marcella Althaus-Reid, offers a helpful definition of ‘queer’. She writes,

“Queer is not oddity. Queer is the very essence of a denied reality . . . [W]e speak of ‘Queering’ . . . as a process of coming back to the authentic, everyday life experiences described as odd by [what we might call here the ‘house rules].”

To be queer is not to be weird (though it may be that to!) but to be cast as weird in a way that is meant to deny something crucial about us.

If inclusion is to be just and liberating it must reveal the house rules (whether of the church, family or society) for an honest reckoning. The Bible and the gospel are filled with images of such reckoning and this series is an attempt to take steps in that direction.

Faith and politics in Winnipeg under Capitalism

I was invited to a share a ‘theological reflection’ at an event entitled ‘Faith and Politics’ in which Shaun Loney, candidate for mayor of Winnipeg in the upcoming municipal election was speaking.

Mr Loney began the time a line from O Holy Night,
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
‘Till he appeared and the soul felt its worth.
This led to his theme of putting the soul back into the city.
How? Loney explored various market based approaches to realities of crime, safety and poverty.
For every problem there appeared to be an economic solution that saved money and improved lives.

The following is an edited and slightly expanded version of what I shared,

I was asked to reflect on this theme of faith and politics through my lens so I wanted to take a moment to clarify my lens knowing that faith is not one thing in general. Being Mennonite, which comes out of the Anabaptist tradition, it is important for me to remember that my religious tradition began with the rejection of the very possibility of being a Christian, of being faithful and of being a political leader in the world.

I have come to accept that I must hold this impossibility but I must hold it alongside another impossibility that Mennonites encountered, the impossibility of escaping the world, which we tried in many times and places around the world. Believing we could escape the world too often resulted in our being used as pawns for various governments or of neglecting the struggles of our neighbours.

So, I come holding two impossibilities, perhaps not such an uncommon thing for people of faith.
In my mind though faith does not overcome these impossibilities but honours and even defends them.

For how can we be faithful when we cannot escape a system that demands endless consumption, growth and profit? How can we be faithful in a city where the investments of the wealthy are prioritized and we feel captive to the demands of police budgets, urban sprawl and corporate interests.

Mr Loney repeatedly said that there is something wrong with the system but when he described what this meant it really seemed to be matter of shifting priorities and approaches. Mr Loney fundamentally accepts the system but sees it as mismanaged or misguided. All the problems of the system are opportunities for change … within the system.

This difference cannot be overlooked. There is a critical wedge of understanding and orientation depending on how one understands the ‘system’ we live in. This wedge may not immediately change our day-to-day actions and decisions. From my very limited understanding many of the projects and priorities Mr Loney promotes seem important and valuable. However, I see them as part of the reality of ‘harm reduction’ in the midst of a system that simply does not care for us as opposed to ‘solutions’ to isolated problems.

Our system will actively and naturally consolidate power among the wealthy and in turn sell us a story in which we as individuals are supposed to be the answer and so most of us who care end up feeling exhausted, insufficient or event to blame. As individuals we too often feel like failures.
So while we are at the daily work of love and care in the midst of our personal lives we need also to hold to account those withholding what could benefit all people. Believing that country was founded on idolatry (what we might call violent injustice) the prophets of the northern kingdom of Israel said of every single king, that king caused the people to sin; their day to day lives were inevitably compromised by their environment.
There is a place for individuals to lay down their guilt and fatigue and then understand and express that a political leader of an unjust system will cause the people to sin.
In an unjust system justice can feel impossible.

To say something is impossible does not mean we despair or wait for utopia. We continue in the daily work of care and love. But that should not keep us for naming our present reality as a system that willfully consolidates power for the sake of profit and growth even in the face of preventable death and suffering. This is the system any political leader, whether of a country or of a city, will attempt to work within.

I see the value in many of the platforms and policies promised by this election’s candidates, perhaps Mr Loney’s most of all, but to acknowledge and denounce the system in which we live is hard enough for ministers to preach but for politicians seeking election to speak this way would surely be an act of faith.

The Confidence Man and his Word of God

Every so often I am reminded of the man I was becoming, the man I could have been, the man that still lurks within me; the Confidence Man. There are many Confidence Men but this Confidence Man holds the Word of God. This Confidence Man is humble and of good cheer for who could be more secure and optimistic than as faithful servant to the Word of God. They claim no credit, indeed they claim soli deo gloria, glory to God alone.

This God has already been fully revealed in the Bible. This is the lynchpin for his confidence. The embrace of scripture as a closed loop of revelation ensures his confidence and insulates him from criticism. Growing up I remember these Confidence Men deploying simple expressions of authority with little awareness of possible complications or contradictions in the Bible. If they found it in the Bible they could wield it from the pulpit. Later in life I came across Confidence Men with much more nuanced approaches. They could parse which expressions of the Old Testament were preserved by endorsement through later expressions in the New Testament. They could acknowledge that some statements were more contextual while others had an eternal quality. Whether naïve or nuanced they were all playing along the same spectrum closing the loop with some aspect of the Bible as the final authority.

Ironically enough my departure from such confidence came from continuing to take the Bible very seriously. I always recognized the internal critique of the Bible in which prophets proclaimed that even ‘right’ words and worship could be disgusting to God but this could still serve the closed loop of the Confidence Man. Later though I was struck by Jesus’ own words of response to his critics when he said, “You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf. Yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” (John 5:39-40)

I also began to consider the principal notion of holiness and how it related to Gospel. Holiness is something of the ‘life force’ of God. All the rituals and all the laws of ancient Israel culminate in the Holy Holies of the Temple. At the center of the Holy of Holies was the Ark of the Covenant. And at the center of that? Nothing. There was literally to be nothing at the center so that God could speak (Ex 25:17-22). We create an idol whenever we lodge an object at that most critical place. This imagery was replicated in the empty tomb (John’s Gospel explicitly frames the empty tomb as the Holy of Holies) as well as Ascension and Pentecost where the community was entrusted with learning to hold that space open for the living God to act and speak. We cannot grasp and hold the final form of God (Peter was moved by a vision in this regard in the book of Acts).

There remain traditions, laws, stories, songs, poems (both in the Bible and beyond) that help us orient ourselves to a God of love and life. But to believe that the loop is closed by citing scripture is to not only violate scripture itself but to leave one vulnerable to idolatry. Who can be more confident than someone who believes they can handle that which is the highest authority?

I should add that I suspect none of this would have happened in my life if I had not also learned early on how the Gospel consistently calls us to walk alongside and pay attention to those who suffer unjustly and unnecessarily in this world (for again the Bible teaches that there will find the Messiah).

My own confidence is often shaken but I would say that my faith is fairly strong. I trust that the word of God is still active and living. But I have no confidence that I have unique or special access to God’s word. I pray and hope it will be revealed as I worship and pray and study and walk with others.

I suspect there are levels of confidence that can become almost impenetrable and I fear what it might take to break through. So I suspect the Confidence Man will find a suitable response to this within his logic. I offer this more to those who may feel unconfident or insecure in the face of the Confidence Man. I offer this also to say that one does not need to scrap the Bible or even the faith (though that is fine if that is what is needed). Indeed I would encourage us to see in the Bible and our faith tradition the idolatries typically present in the Confidence Man.

Honouring the Migiziiwazison Sacred Fire Camp

Publishing in the Winnipeg Free Press March 22, 2022.
https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/analysis/fire-camp-honors-sacredness-576317972.html

The events of March 9 in which the Manitoba government authorized the partial demolition of the Migiziiwazison Sacred Fire Camp on the legislature’s east lawn put into sharp focus the enduring conflict between government and Indigenous sovereignty.

A sacred fire was lit on June 25, 2021, in recognition of the 215 graves discovered in Kamloops, B.C. From the beginning, the stated intent of the camp was for prayer and to offer healing to those impacted by “Indian” Residential Schools and to remain until all school grounds are searched. In contrast, the only category the Manitoba Legislature appears to have for the camp is one of “protest”, for which they typically allow a month’s long encampment. The Migiziiwazison camp has been held for nine months now.

I have been involved with the camp since July of 2021. My commitment and respect for the camp grew as I sat around the fire listening to stories of healing and the sharing of traditions and ceremonies.

The longer I attended, the more I began to witness the struggles and challenges that come in any grassroots movement but add to this the realities of generational and colonial traumas. Then came winter. This Two Spirit Indigenous youth-led camp dug deep even as most of them also worked or attended school. They focused on keeping the fire going 24/7 through snow and bitter cold, sometimes having to rely on a bag or two of gas-station firewood before the next larger donation would arrive.

The sacred fire was held with great struggle, joy, commitment and cost. All of this work was met with skid steers and a bulldozer tearing down half the camp.

The sacred fire and the camp resolve remain but so does the agenda of the Manitoba Legislature, which is for the camp to close and move out. Added to this is news of proposed legislation creating greater powers of enforcement over those occupying legislative grounds. Rather than the drama of bulldozers I am worried our government could quietly squeeze the camp with fines.

Tending to my concern over the likelihood of another conflict, something came to mind. Those who sit as MLAs inside the legislature building are called “honourable.” We speak easily of the “sanctity” of family and property. I myself am referred to as “reverend.” Do we recognize this fire as “sacred” and if so, what would that mean?

From my experience around the fire and from my understanding as a pastor and theologian, sacredness has the power to disarm and undo, laying us bare that we might be healed and remade. A small piece of land has been consecrated and we should act accordingly.

The notion of “land back” has become a popular phrase when addressing settler-Indigenous relations. The question of land often arises at sites of conflict between Indigenous claims and corporate interests. The occupation of land by the Migiziiwazison camp is also an expression of “land back.”

The Manitoba government now officially acknowledges that it exists on Treaty One territory.As many of us settlers still need to learn, Treaty One cannot be interpreted solely from Canadian documentation. Author Aimée Craft has demonstrated an Anishinaabe perspective in which the land was opened to be shared rather than surrendered.

Canadian governments have demonstrated time and again that they cannot share outside their own agenda. We now have an opportunity to try something else and honour the reclamation of a small piece of land as sacred and Indigenous. Alongside the challenges faced by the camp, there are also dreams and visions flowing from this place; the planting of sacred medicines and vegetables, sharing circles, drum and singing workshops, full moon ceremonies and the establishment of a sweat lodge.

We know how these things typically go. The agenda of the legislature is closure and governments tend to find a way. The provincial government understands this camp to be a protest but what if the ground of the camp is an expression of “land back,” a sacred authority with the power and potential to help undo past wrongs and remake a shared future?

Rev. David Driedger is leading minister of First Mennonite Church in Winnipeg as well as firekeeper at the Migiziiwazison Sacred Fire Camp.

Is there hope for the police officer?

I have no doubt that morale is low and depression high among Winnipeg police officers. They are called into situations of crisis and violence and in many situations they called when the crisis and violence has already occurred, that is, there is little for them to do. It seems that what made this manageable even if difficult was a sense of public value, that they were honored for the difficult situations they were placed in. In August of 2020 Winnipeg Police Chief Danny Smyth attempted to address what he called a ‘breach of the social contract’, namely that the police would uphold their responsibilities and in turn be honoured appropriately. Smyth goes on to name the current ‘woke’ culture that is challenging the necessity of policing as a “steady and constant drumbeat of criticism [that] is taking a toll on the well-being of the women and men who dedicate themselves to serving our community.”[1]

In months we would hear more about low morale and even the suicide an officer. Here again, citizens engaged critical approaches to policing are called out. Chair of the Winnipeg Police Board Markus Chambers is quoted as saying, “There are some people who focus on abolishing police, and simply do not recognize the services… are provided by humans who are also subject to emotion and feeling. We can agree to disagree about funding or defunding, but should not de-value the work that officers do as they literally put their lives on the line.”[2] This critical culture is named explicitly in the obituary of the officer who died by suicide stating, “Sadly the light in his eyes began to dim in latter months as he became increasingly troubled with anti-police protests, campaigns, growing public hatred and cynicism toward police officers.”[3]

In the latest insight into current police culture in Winnipeg a column was written by a recently retired police officer. This input attempts to offer some insight into the lived experience of facing difficult and tragic situations in which one has little time to reflect on actions. We are told that they are in situations in which it is impossible for race to factor into their split second decision and in turn must bear the judgment of a race sensitive culture in which “Had I shot him . . . the purple community and their supporters would undoubtedly have vilified me for shooting a purple person just because he was purple. Circumstances be damned — I’m a racist.” Again in the end there is a naming of rising culture critical of policing of which “the magnitude of this unfettered malevolence directed at police lately is disarming.”[4] That race is viewed as some arbitrary, ahistorical and superficial distinction should make us wonder about what sort of training police do fact in receive. I want, however, to focus on the closing remarks regarding malevolence.

In the last year I have become increasingly invested in understanding and promoting the idea of defunding and abolishing the police. I have been a part of events which, it is true, expressed deep animosity and ‘malevolence’ towards the police. I would like to offer a few thoughts which attempt to take seriously the present experience of individual Winnipeg police officers within a commitment to defunding the police.

Anecdotally when I was in my late teens and early twenties I considered RCMP training. I had no clear career aspirations and I intuitively felt like the RCMP was an honorable and moral expression in society. Had a few circumstances shifted there is no reason I would not have pursued that opportunity. All this to say I understand at least one impulse towards policing. I expect many police officers both entered into and have attempted to carry out their work from a desire literally to ‘serve and protect’. So why not support them? Isn’t the work of serving and protecting still honorable?

While I did not go into policing I did enter another fraught profession, namely Christian ministry. Like policing Christianity has historically communicated its work as benevolent and beneficial to society. And like policing Christianity has had staunch critics who have called for Christianity’s decolonization and some instances outright abolition. For years I was defensive of such criticisms responding with claims that such criticisms were limited or part of a misunderstanding. In time though I learned more about why people criticized Christianity and began to see for myself how the church functioned harmfully. I found both particular harms that could perhaps be dismissed as ‘bad apples’ but I also began to see deep structural problems in how Christianity positions itself as possessing the truth and how that impacts its encounter with non-Christians. So I wrestled with these questions, for years (and still do). There were times that I had to give myself the option of leaving the church if I felt it was too compromised for what I wanted to live and work for. In the end I stayed but in staying I occupied a different place and expression in the church than which I began.

My investment, which as a Christian I come to speak of as ‘gospel’, is in supporting and valuing expressions of peace and just. This is different than being invested in the church or in Christianity. This allows me to be critical where criticism is warranted and be supportive for support is required. This is not a perfect response and I can accept imperfections in life but what I wonder is whether anything like this is even possible within policing.

With only the slimmest acknowledgement of anything like racism as a problem we have witnessed the spokespeople for the Winnipeg Police double down on defending their profession and attacking voluntary activists as literally causing their depression and suicide. Is there any freedom to express deep concerns over systemic abuses? Is there any ability to accept the role of policing in relation to issues of securing wealth and punishing poverty? Can there be calls from within the force that acknowledge that the authorization and implementation of lethal force is hardly ever required for serving the public as well as acknowledging that the threat of such force actually risks escalating a situation towards such ends? Or to put it in a way that I had to for myself. What are you invested in? Are you invested in the wellbeing of those you are called to serve or are you invested in the maintenance of your institution?

Calls to defund the police are only experienced as attacks when you are more invested in the institution of policing than in the wellbeing of the community. I understand that the personal struggle of facing criticism and natural response of defensiveness. As a pastor I am open to speaking anyone about their experiences in this area. But truly this becomes a question of maturity. If someone is not yet able to face and meaningfully engage such criticism than perhaps they are, at the very least, not mature enough to carry a gun.  

If indeed there is no space to explore the harmfulness of policing by police officers themselves then there is little hope either for substantive change or for improved wellbeing of individual officers becoming yet another way in which the structure of policing is inadequate to pursuing peace and wellbeing in our city.

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[1] https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/analysis/the-lamentable-erosion-of-a-social-contract-572049092.html

[2] https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/depression-anxiety-widespread-in-city-police-force-2013-survey-found-573950892.html

[3] https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/analysis/after-tragedy-time-to-reconsider-issues-573930392.html

[4] https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/analysis/the-view-from-behind-the-badge-574078452.html

Proud Boys and their Modern World

In a recent local social media exchange attempts were made to identify a number of men from the Manitoba chapter of Proud Boys. A handful were pictured with a Proud Boys banner attending a rally. Curious, I clicked on some of the links to the social media profiles of Winnipeggers who identified with this group. Down the rabbit hole I went. Exploring where Proud Boys seemed more active I ended up on a social media platform I had never heard of which promotes itself as the ‘Free Speech Social Network’. Upon registering (and without giving any ‘preferences’) I was immediately given suggestions to follow various right wing American politicians and commentators. I began to follow as many local or even Canadian Proud Boy related accounts as I could find as well as prominent American groups and leaders.