This Land Is Our Land: The Land Acknowledgement at All Saints, Collingwood

 This Land Is Our Land

(From the June 21 edition of our All Saints Alive Newsletter)

I write this close to Friday, June 21, a date which for some years in our Anglican Church of Canada has been fixed as the annual National Indigenous Day of Prayer.    As many of you are aware, our Anglican Church of Canada, along with many other Christian churches in our country, has been on a long journey of reconciliation and understanding with our indigenous brothers and sisters.

This seems to be a good occasion to talk about the reading of the Land Acknowledgement which has begun our Sunday worship for many months now.   Church is not the only place where you will hear a land acknowledgement - they are commonly used in government, higher education, and at civic events.  

First, what is the purpose of the Land Acknowledgement?  Our Diocese of Toronto website gives the reasons for it as follows:   

“In the Church, this practice helps us acknowledge that we’re located in a particular place with a particular history and reminds us of our obligations toward both the land and to those who have inhabited it long before the arrival of Christian missionaries. It’s also our way of expressing a willingness to move toward reconciliation and a renewed, respectful relationship with Indigenous peoples.”

It’s also worth nothing that in 2016 by the Primate’s Commission on Discovery, Reconciliation and Justice recommended that churches include land acknowledgements in their worship services.

I’ve written our Land Acknowledgement in the form of a prayer, in which we ask for wisdom, attentiveness, and a desire to repair relations, because these all seem to be things worth praying for.

Occasionally I’m asked what the purpose of saying these words is, and whether there’s a danger that they become rote.    To be frank, I’ve also heard that some parishioners are unenthusiastic about this practice.

Confronting our history is hard work.  For older Canadians, our sense of history and national identity can be challenged when we hear indigenous people refer to us as “settlers”.    Canada Day, just around the corner, is an occasion of civic pride for the country that our own ancestors moved to, helped build, and fought for.  The Land Acknowledgement is a way of helping us into a new reality as Canadians and as Christians.

It’s difficult for many of us who don’t know indigenous people to know what exactly we are meant to do.    An indigenous friend of mine once told me that my job is to learn.    Learning is an opportunity presented to all of us, through cultural events hosted by Collingwood’s indigenous community, through books, and through conversations.   In this time of climate uncertainty, we can all benefit from the deep wisdom of indigenous traditions around care of creation.

After this Sunday, the Land Acknowledgement will continue to be printed in our bulletin, though my intention is to no longer read it aloud at every service.  It will be said at our vestry meetings, in certain seasons (Lent, a time of repentance, seems appropriate), and in June as we approach the National Indigenous Day of Prayer.   We will continue to look for occasions to learn about indigenous people and to embrace reconciliation in meaningful, local ways.

Finally, let me just say that if hearing the Land Acknowledgement has made us uncomfortable, then it may have served its purpose.

Father Michael