The National Indigenous Day of Prayer is observed by the Anglican Church of Canada every year on June 21. In light of this, Rev Derwyn speaks to part of the history of Canada with regard to the First Nations and moves to an encouragement for each of us to respond thoughtfully to our Indigenous brothers and sisters. Included in this video is a special musical piece put together by our Minister of Music, Jason Barnsley, and the video closes with a Navajo prayer of blessing spoken by the Rev Canon Cornelia Eaton of Navajoland.
CORRECTION: I made two significant factual errors in the delivery of this sermon. I'm not going to make any excuses, but I apologize for the errors and wish to set the record straight:
- I said that the 215 bodies of children at the Kamloops residential school were found in a mass grave. That is incorrect; they were found in unmarked graves. However, the point I made about the nature of their burial remains the same.
- I said that the residential schools in Canada carried on until the 1960's, but the last ones were actually closed in the mid-90's. The Kamloops residential school closed in 1978.
And one more thing: the book I referred to by Thomas King is entitled, "The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America". It was published in 2012 by Doubleday Canada (I think I said 2017 in the sermon), and I recommend that you give it a read!
