Sometimes, birthdays, anniversaries, and special days on the calendar become the day when something terrible, or negatively-unexpected happens, forever leaving that day as a reminder to the event instead of the reminder of the day’s intended celebrations. For many in Lytton BC, today will become known as the day a summer fire took out the entire town, causing great loss. Unmarked graves are being uncovered using ground-penetrating radar at more residential schools across Canada. BC has had over 486 “sudden deaths” during the heatwave that we hope is starting to break. Today was 39C, tomorrow is due to be 35C, then two days so far at 32C, BUT, we have smoke that may roll in over the weekend from a number of fires around BC, and a few as close as our local ski hill where 3 small fires are burning 20km away from the hill and are now at 1400ha collectively. I hope the smoke doesn’t come in too heavily as I’m supposed to be doing a small yard sale as part of the larger neighbourhood yard sale Sunday morning.
With all of that going on, Today is Canada Day. The official day of Canada’s founding as a nation. Our indigenous first nations people are divided whether today should have been “cancelled”. Some said to cancel it due to the graves being found, others said we need to keep the holiday and use it to unify rather than divide so Canada can move forward better than we were in the past.
I’m inclined to step in with the latter group. Name one nation on the globe that doesn’t have a dark blight somewhere in it’s history and I’ll show you a unicorn. (in Scripture, the unicorn was an ibex with it’s horns twisted together) Germany didn’t cancel itself after Hitler murdered millions of Jews and other ethnicities. But people are trying to cancel history like no other time in history, and now trying to cancel Canada Day as well.
Today was a muted Canada Day for me because of both Lytton, and the residential school findings. It was also muted because due to the heat, our local parade got cancelled. Lastly, it was muted because a walk I took this afternoon nearly did me in with the 38C heat and a wind that only occasionally had a cool current in it. Hot wind is suffocating to try to breathe in!
I am relieved that the mask mandate has officially lifted provincially, and that I can now go about my errands like I used to. I am frustrated that I may have to dig out my bandanna because of incoming forest fire smoke!
Canada is the nation God placed me in for this time and season. It isn’t perfect, but it is my home. Happy Canada Day! May God grant comfort to those who need it today. Provision to those who need it today. And Safety to those who need it today. In Jesus’ name, Amen.