You shall
also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. Deut. 10: 19
Around 1850, unknown
to each other, two families left Germany and found themselves in Canada, one in
the Kitchener-Waterloo area, the other near Walkerton. For eight generations
the family provided a living for their families: as yeoman, farmers, landowners,
teachers, nurses. German was spoken, the
faith was Lutheran, and German traditions were incorporated into Canadian life.
I am the eighth generation of these two families; not that you would know by my
last name as it changed from “Mueller” when I was married.
I am a Canadian. I
belong!
I practice Christianity
as a Lutheran. I belong!
I belong until
asked, “How does someone with a name like McNabb, end up Lutheran?”
I belong until my
grown-up journey is interrupted...
I grew up around
Georgian Bay with beautiful big water, jack pines, limestone and granite.
My job took me to
Northern NB where the land was unfamiliar: big water was a river, there was
little corn with few cows in the fields, rock striation was vertical, there
were no cedar trees. I was exiled from familiar scenery like that represented
in the Northern paintings of Tom Tompson and the Group of Seven. I was aghast on
one occasion to hear directed at me, “Well you’re just an Upper Canadian.” I
belonged to the community in which I lived, but, a part of me felt like the
stranger, a foreigner, an alien.
My job brought me
to Halifax, NS.
Nova Scotia felt
like coming home. It looked a bit like Northern ON with rocks and trees, and
water so big you can’t see across it. The peninsula of the city is like an old
European city. The city has a spirit, one that holds in tension the colliding
of old and new, a warmness where visitors are treated as guests, where organic
fair trade coffee and locally crafted beer is found on every other corner. I was shocked the first time I heard the quip
“CFA,” that means a person who “comes from away.” Twelve years later, I am, and will remain a
CFA.
I belong here.
My spirit is akin to this place.
I belong to the community in which I live, but, a part of me feels like
a stranger, a foreigner, an alien.
And I guess a piece
of me, my heart (is grounded) in the Algonquin forest, not in Alex Colville
paintings, or the great depictions of ships at sea that flood the NS Art
Gallery.
The smell of the
sea does not smell like the Great Lakes.
The sea air is not home,
as much as my spirit is akin with the spirit of Halifax, I remain a
CFA: a stranger, a foreigner, an alien.
God,
I belong
I feel that I
should
Eight generations
of living in this land
Designated as
Canadian
White, privileged
And yet,
Although a Maritimer
--- an Upper Canadian, a CFA---
I belong and yet, a
stranger, a foreigner, an alien
In my homeland.
Perhaps we all belong
and are all strangers at the same time.
Embracing this may
I enfold every other as sister, as brother, for we all journey on foreign land.
Amen.
an additional prayer:
God of Land and Sky and Sea,
As you journeyed in the creation of all things,
You filled the world with Mystery and wonder.
There is a piece of you in all.
The variety is overwhelming; astounding.
May the pieces of land and sky and sea,
that we experience, awe us such that we approach all journey
and everyone's story with a new understanding ---
an inkling of respect.
May our journey be one diverse abundant trail where
Mystery binds our hearts as one.
Amen.
an additional prayer:
God of Land and Sky and Sea,
As you journeyed in the creation of all things,
You filled the world with Mystery and wonder.
There is a piece of you in all.
The variety is overwhelming; astounding.
May the pieces of land and sky and sea,
that we experience, awe us such that we approach all journey
and everyone's story with a new understanding ---
an inkling of respect.
May our journey be one diverse abundant trail where
Mystery binds our hearts as one.
Amen.
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