Online Sunday School - Week 44 of 2018

One of the few songs I learned at the feet of my father was “Young folks, old folks everybody come, join the Mormon Sunday School and have a lot of fun”…. I went looking for a good utube rendition of the song. Ha ha. Now to find the lyrics.

Online Sunday School – Week 44 
 I can see why people might not want to come to the Online Sunday School.

Not unless they are really ready to participate in acts of reconciliation. 

Mary, I don’t even know if you had time to sign up to the ongoing blog text I am reading and wanting to discuss.

This week there has been a discussion on “how racism has affected Indigenous peoples in a broader society sense that is not limited to the law”. That was made clear on Monday with a post entitled “In Light of the Hateful Letter to the Andersons”. The week‘s discussion then picked up on tuberculosis in Inguit, Nunangat; Indigenous Homelessness; Edmonton’s Own Hospital of Horrors (the Charles Camsell Indian Hospital) and a discussion about disturbing colonial attitudes which included threats of biological warfare against them.

I am glad all of this comes in small chunks each day – just enough to think about and not be overwhelmed.

Some years ago, when reflecting on my own life, I was wishing that I had spent less time studying my own religion and more time studying the history of Canada. For some reason, I can take that wish back, now, since I can see ahead of me, plenty of time to do the latter and I don’t regret anything I learned when I was fully immersed in doing the former.

Well, that is my summary about what I learned this week. As well, the following are three other places where I found interesting reading that I want to share, or perhaps that you saw as well.

I guess I will call these “option” readings from last week.

1. I liked the following piece in the Edmonton Journal: Opinion: Let’s not whitewash racism in the justice system

2. I went to Darcy Lin’s Facebook page – June 19th “I don’t believe in pointing to the parallels of separation of children from their parents in the US and the past and present ‘child-welfare” politics…”
 I thought this was a particularly beautiful literary piece of writing.

3. Again Darcy Lin's facebook page dated August 30 – “For Mom on her 64th”
 I have placed that choice here for people who like poetry.

4.   And of course, I can now substitute "online sunday school" for Mormon/Baptist Sunday School or whatever religion a person substitutes here.  Here is how it is sung in Glasgow.  Not with the same tune I remember, but then, no one ever said that Doral had the right tune.

Arta

On watching Angry Inuk

I can't find my Truth and Reconciliation Commission's 93 Calls to Action.

I will find them when I do some deep cleaning. 

For now, I know them well enough to remember that there is one where the Government of Canada calls all churches to teach the history of the Indigenous people of Canada.  Our Bow Valley Ward hasn’t started doing that yet. I am going to do it here for anyone who wants to attend such a class until one starts in my ward or in their own ward.

Here is the assignment for this week: watch the NFB's Angry Inuk

Seal skin purse, a gift to me.
Purchased by Rebecca Johnson while visiting in Inuvik
I use this for make up or to hold loose change.

The National Film Board is showing Angry Inuk by Alethea Arnaquq Basil for free until Sept 25th.   

I watched it last night in preparation for this post.  

I have been intending to watch it and in fact did see about 18 minutes of it a few weeks ago until I was interrupted  and just didn't get back to it during the evening.  

I thought film was lovely.  I use film as my chance to travel as well as learn about Indigenous history.  Here are moments that stood out to me.

1. the picture of the little children who had just eaten raw seal and some of the blood was on their mouthes.  I admit, that image was so spectacular that I had Bonnie come and look at only that piece of the film.  I was remembering when I took a food class where I learned that all people eat the foot that is around them.  In this case, seal is the meal of the day.

2. sledding down a hill on sealskin – so right to see that scene after being told how to prepare a seal skin for sale or private use and then seeing them  use a toboggan run as a chance to scrape fibres off of the seal skin.

3. foot dancing during a protest in Toronto.  I wish there had been more of that.  I could feel myself wanting to stand up and try a few steps of that.

4. I loved the shot just going through the village and past all of the house.  As well, the image as a plane went overhead filming the community for us.   I loved being a Canadian at those two points. 

5. I stopped the film during the screen credits and read them slowly, both during the ones for the music credits and then again I stopped the screen when there was thanks going out.  So sweet and what a good use of the screen.  And a double bonus for me that I can stop the images at home, when I can’t do that at the theatre.  I miss the huge screen though.

6. I studied the Indigenous tattoos on the women.  I have seen single portraits of these tattoos before.  What felt new to me is that I wasn’t observing these tattoos now in single portraits, but as adornment on women who were living their real lives – at their computers, in their kitchens, making clothing, attending meetings at the European Union, etc.

7. I liked the thread of protest that runs through the film: protest about their chance for commercial success being taken away with an argument that can’t be sustained intellectually.

That is it for this week. 

Watch the film if you haven't yet.  We will discuss it more next week as well.

Arta