Oh! Canada…

We used to sing with ramrod straight backs and serious brows

of the glorious crown of her majesty

while my friends disappeared in the night.

 

“All for the glory of God and country…,” we were told.

 

And yet…

the Spirit flowing through me

couldn’t find peace with it,

wouldn’t settle for a religion that

strangled relationship and fed on the purest of the pure.

 

Insidious things pranced about in the daytime

so proud

so wicked

blinded by arrogance and insatiable want of power.

Sure they thrived under the cloak of deception.

 

And yet…

the Saviour walking with me

wouldn’t abandon me to their hands,

couldn’t stand the darkness of their hearts

as He embraced the lost ones to His bosom.

 

Weeping splits the atmosphere.

Sorrow reaches the Throne room

the blood in the ground has cried out

and Justice is dispatched

in a timing so perfect I can not know it,

but my jubilee gift, the most perfect, splendid present…

True Light pierces the darkness

false light has layered before us for the last thousand years…

Lost little ones found,

Truth like a banner of vindication stretches across the land.

 

My spirit and my soul rejoice

at this most glorious Round Dance before me.

Beautiful faces in the Cloud

names only Justice has known

languages long thought dead…

all these years they have been safe on the lap of Heaven.

 

Still, 10-year-old me thinks back to the last page

And I finally understand;

“‘God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world,’ whispered Anne softly.”