Tom Adams
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Well, so much for being a poll denier. I made a decision to not believe the polls about the election and trust that good would triumph. While it turns out I was quite wrong, I am grateful to Big Spirit for that gift. While it didn’t protect me from worry, it did help me stay hopeful as I did what I could to support candidates I believed in.
We are all walkers. Sometime during our first year on this earth, we took our first steps. Now I doubt that anyone of us remembers those first tentative steps on our own two feet. But I bet our parents remembered them and took pride in watching us teeter along. It’s what we did when we witnessed our children’s first steps. Walking defines us as a species. We are the species that stands up and walks.
Every once in awhile I leave my tiny Island home and take a boat across a narrow channel of the Salish Sea to the City. I like to joke that in about 5 minutes time in the City I see more people than I am likely to see for perhaps a whole year on my Island home. It takes me a while to get accustomed to the sounds and to the speed at which life moves around and through me.
We are sitting on a large piece of driftwood nestled into the sand at San Josef Bay near the northernmost tip of land on Vancouver Island. Clouds of rain have come and gone most of the day until a small, postage-stamp sized piece of blue sky opens up. An osprey seizes the moment to rise into the air and begin its fishing expedition along the Bay. Its flight is a joyous sight. Soaring with each breeze it stops to hover by rapidly flapping its broad white wings. Suddenly it shape shifts into a darted missile and dives down into the churning sea and emerges scant seconds later with a wriggling piece of silver clenched in its talons. And then disappears.
How does one measure a life in ways other than a year? The annual journey of the earth around the sun is the accepted standard way of counting out time. But along the way, there are many events that colour our vision backwards into the passages of time. And a lot of living and loving. And now nearing 75, birthdays come and go with such increasing regularity that I seem to have lost touch. Still, it is so good to celebrate life and reminisce now and then.
Editor’s Note: Guest contributor Tim Leadem begins 2023 with reflections on the lessons he has found as a practitioner and student of pilgrimages around the world. Spiritual writers often refer to life as a journey or pilgrimage. Tim’s writing has evolved from prose to poetry. Enjoy the compact power of each word in his reflections and their application as we begin another year of individual and community pilgrimage.
Pope Francis’ recent penitential pilgrimage and visit to Canada to meet with indigenous communities and to apologise for the role of the Catholic Church for abuses sustained by children in residential schools was a step forward. It was long overdue. Over the course of several days the pontiff traveled to various sites and expressed his heartfelt remorse over the past wrongs that Catholic clergy and laity had committed over the course of the 100 plus years that residential schools have operated in Canada.
In May 2021, the remains of 215 children were discovered on the grounds of a former residential school near Kamloops, British Columbia. The gruesome discovery shocked many Canadians and confirmed what many indigenous leaders and people had been telling Canadians for decades-namely, that residential schools, many of which were operated by Christian denominations were and remain a tragedy of misplaced policies that sought to bring indigenous communities within the mainstream of Canadian life. Instead, residential schools removed children from their homes and parents and became a mechanism for discouraging the culture and language of indigenous communities. The Truth and Reconciliation Committee of Canada labeled the whole history of residential schools a form of cultural genocide. The treatment of indigenous people in subjecting them to the trauma of residential schools that started in 1879 and lasted until the mid 1990s is a deep stain upon the Canadian psyche.
For several years I have been fascinated with pilgrimages as a living metaphor for walking the spiritual path.
Tom Adams writes and speaks on topics vital to the intersection of our personal lives with our community and global lives. He has for decades been engaged in and written about nonprofit leadership and transitions, spirituality and spiritual growth, how we each contribute to a more just and equitable world and recovery from addictions and the Twelve Step recovery movement.