This week there are a flurry of “international” and “national” days of remembrance:
This weekend, Sunday Dec 6th is Canada’s National Day of Action and Remembrance of victims of gender-based violence. A day on which we remember 14 women were gunned down because they were women. And other women and transwomen who are killed because they are women. We wear white ribbons to remember, and vow “never again”.
We are in the middle of the UN’s campaign of 16 Days of Action against gender discrimination. One Canadian response is the campaign #WeWillWearWhatWeWant, a campaign that encourages women to gather wearing whatever makes us feel “like a woman”. Some women will be scantily dressed, others will be fully veiled. What would a picture of your ‘group of women’ look like? Post it on Facebook, or on Twitter, link it to your church’s facebook page.
And then there is the issue of hundreds of documented cases of indigenous women who have gone missing or have been murdered whose cases are still unsolved.
Imagine a world where women didn’t need to fear being attacked or harassed, or discriminated against, or talked about for how they live their lives.
This past Tuesday, Dec 1, on World AIDS Day, many people stood and prayed in solidarity with those whose lives have been touched by HIV and AIDS-related illness; most are women, 25 million are children orphaned by AIDS, 85% of which live in sub-Saharan Africa (avert.org).
And on Dec 10th, we will mark the 68th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, yet daily we see human rights abuses done even by signatory countries like Canada, the US, Israel, Afghanistan and China.
How do we seek peace when we face such huge obstacles?
These markers are our attempts –frail as they are – to remember the vision, to honour the people affected, and so build a world of peace on life at a time. Some of these days of remembrance give us courage to speak our truth of how God’s vision brings peace to our lives. Other days of remembrance feel like refiners fire and launder’s soap scrubbing a layer of skin off us and we feel raw and tender and exposed.
We are human, frail and forgetful; we do not always generate peace between ourselves and others in the community. We make mistakes, but we are forgiven every time we turn back to the path that leads to righteous peace. We can be courageous in recognizing the hurt our lives do to others, to turn away from those acts, we wash that grime off our soul so that God’s vision can shine through us.
We are empowered by God’s spirit working in us; we can be humbly courageous and take our place in the movements that build up justice. Our actions to change the world – as small as they might be – are acts of faith – faith that God’s love transforms us, faith that loving our neighbour – the ones we like and the ones we don’t – will lead us to be with God. We need not fear facing those places within us that need mending. Though sometimes it feels like we are facing words of fire, and repentance tastes like soap, God uses them to make us our very best self, the self that God sees within us. Fear not, remember the vision on these days of remembrance and discover the peace your soul craves.
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