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Up Ghost River: A Chief's Journey Through the Turbulent Waters of Native History

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Edmund Metatawabin

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“When I left residential school, I became confused and saw life from a different perspective. I was not aware of society. I was now living in the world, seeing people other than priests and nuns. I was ashamed of who I was. After nine years of having negative messages drilled into my head at residential school, my mind was tattered by the time I was released. I had been taught that to be Native meant I had no value: that I was not human. I felt defective and did not know how to change this. I was overflowing with shame. When my relatives staggered down the streets, I would pretend I did not know them. I felt embarrassed seeing them drunk. When people saw them staggering down the street, they were not just calling them down, they were also including me. I took this so personally. I often wondered why they were like this. I did not realize they had the same pain I had, maybe more, and that was their way of coping.”

Canadian HistoryResidential SchoolsIndigenous Literature
Book:They Called Me 33: Reclaiming Ingo-Waabigwan
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“I do not think I was capable of understanding, as I was only six. My mother became distant and shut her feelings as she left me. How could she explain to me—a six-year-old—what was going to happen to me? This was a hopeless situation for both of us. A mother giving up her child to strangers is one of the hardest things to do, and I would soon know what alone meant.”

Indigenous PeoplesCanadian HistoryResidential Schools
Book:They Called Me 33: Reclaiming Ingo-Waabigwan
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“I had a lot of resentment against my brothers for what they did to me. I carried this anger around with me, and it was actually making me sick. There is a saying in AA that if you have resentments it keeps you away from the joy of sobriety, and this was true. I was carrying a load on my shoulders. One day we talked about the abuse in counselling, and my counsellor asked me if it was happening today. I said, “No.” She suggested living for today and leaving yesterday in the past. I did not know what she meant until I got thinking about it. If I dwelled on the past it would rob me of today. That made a lot of sense. I was stuck in the past. To get past it, I had to accept that yes I was a victim of sexual abuse and yes, I was a victim of residential school, but that was in the past. This is very hard to do because the result of these events changed my views on everything I do today. I have to learn how to keep myself in the present, instead of the past. It is a continuous battle within me. It is like I have dual personalities, and one wants to overtake the other. One still wants to be Karen the victim, who wants the attention and pity. The other, Karen the Survivor, wants to be independent and strong and wants to help others.”

Healing The PastIndigenous WisdomResidential Schools
Book:They Called Me 33: Reclaiming Ingo-Waabigwan
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“Theologically, the demand for “circumcision” can take many forms, even today. It appears whenever one thinks along these lines: “Faith in Christ is fine as far as it goes, but your relation to God is not really right and your salvation not adequate unless…” It does not matter how the sentence is completed. Whenever such fine print is introduced to qualify trust/faith, there is “circumcision,” and Paul’s defense of the adequacy of trust/faith can come into its own again. The Galatian situation is never far; in fact, it is all too familiar.”

ChristianityJesus ChristNew TestamentPaulNew Covenant
Book:Paul and His Letters
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“If any object (as some fanatic persons have done), Jer. 31.34, "And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour," &c., 1 John 2.27, "And ye need not that any man teach you," I answer, [1.] These scriptures are to be understood comparatively, in the same sense as God said he would have mercy and not sacrifice, Hos. 6.6. The Spirit of illumination and knowledge shall be so abundantly poured forth under the gospel, and God shall so write his laws in the hearts of his people, that there shall be almost as much difference between those under the old covenant and those under the new covenant, as there is between those that need a teacher and those that need not a teacher.”

CommentaryNew Covenant
Book:A Treatise of Miscellany Questions: Wherein Many Usefull Questions & Cases of Conscience Are Discussed & Resolved: For the Satisfaction of Those, Who ... Truths, in the Controversies of These Times
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“All the Substantial commands explicit or implicit of former Covenants of Faith, are as obligatory and binding to us now under the New Covenant, as formerly they were to Gods people under any Covenant on whom they were first imposed. As former Promises are still Consolatory to us in regard of Covenant-Mercies from God: So former Commands Explicit or Implicit are obligatory to us in regard of Covenant-Duties to God. The Analogy and proportion betwixt these two is evident. Are not we as strongly obliged now under the New Covenant; To fight against the Serpent, that in Christ we may bruise his head; as well as Adam? To believe Gods word and warnings, and be Obedient to him in most difficult undertakings: as well as Noah? 3. To Walk before God in Faith and Obedience, To be perfect, To initiate our infant Children in the first initiating Token of the present Covenant of God, &c. as well as Abraham? To observe all the ten Commandments of the Moral Law; as well as the People Israel? To keep Gods Covenant and Testimony; as well as David and his seed? To remember our own evil wayes and doings which were not good, and loath ourselves in our own sight for our iniquities, and for our Abominations; To walk in Gods Statutes, &c. To be Gods Covenant-people, &c. as well as Gods Captives in Babylon? Doubtless these and like Command of the Substance of former Covenants, reach us, concern us, oblige us … as well as Gods people of old: for they were never abrogated, but rather most strongly reinforced and confirmed under the New Covenant.”

SubstanceNew CovenantCovenant Theology
Book:Mysterium & medulla Bibliorum the mysterie and marrow of the Bible
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