DAY 30

North Cape Arch, PEI by Gregory Roberts


The Confederation Trail (I)

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A Greeting
I stretch out my hands to you;
my soul thirsts for you like a parched land. Selah
(Psalm 143:6)

A Reading
In his hand are the depths of the earth;
the heights of the mountains are his also.
The sea is his, for he made it,
and the dry land, which his hands have formed.
O come, let us worship and bow down,
let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!
For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture,
and the sheep of his hand.
(Psalm 95:4-7)

Music



Meditative Verses
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and put a new and right spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from your presence.
(Psalm 51:10-11a)

A Reflection
Peace. You never know what peace is until you walk along the
shores or in the fields or along the winding red roads of Abegweit
on a summer twilight, when the dew is falling and the old old stars
are peeping out and the sea keeps its nightly tryst with the little
land it loves. You find your soul then. You realize that youth is not
a vanished thing but something that dwells forever in the heart.
And you look around on the dimming landscape of haunted hills and
long white sand beaches and murmuring ocean. On homestead lights
and the old fields tilled by dead and gone generations. Even if you
are not Abegweit-born you will say “why, I have come home”.
- from "Prince Edward Island" written by L.M. Montgomery,
for a booklet called "The Spirit of Canada: Dominion and Provinces 1939,
published by the CPR in honour of a royal rail tour that year. Found on anneofgreengables.com

Verse for the Day
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and sustain in me a willing spirit
(Psalm 51:12)

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Undated photograph by Lucy Maud Montgomery of her friend Nora LeFurgey
who is herself taking a photograph, on the North Shore of Prince Edward Island.
Found on cbc.ca

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A STORY


From coastal New Brunswick, travelers walk on to the Confederation Bridge and come into Prince Edward Island on the traditional lands of the Pigtogeoag and Epeogoitnag peoples of the Mi’kmaq, walking on the Confederation Trail. The island is home to the Lennox Island First Nation and the Abegweit First Nation. Abegweit is a Mi’kmaq word meaning “land that is cradled on waves”. In today’s reflection, Lucy Maud Montgomery uses the word 'Abegweit' as the name of the place that holds her heart. At the end of today’s video story, taken from the 1985 film adaptation of her book Anne of Green Gables, Marilla says “to despair is to turn your back on God”. This very strict theology holds a deeper struggle in the writer. As the wife of a minister, and the survivor of a very unhappy childhood, ‘Maud’ Montgomery knew a lot about despair. The recently re-published journals reveal a debilitating depression that she struggled with for most of her life. Her great comfort was in her writing and in her connection to her birth place, even when she was not actually living there. In capturing it for the royal family tour of Canada in 1939, she describes a peace of spirit in which God is present. In her journal, at the end of a childhood story about church, she adds, “And how glad I was when it was all over and we got down and out under the blue sky once more, where we could drink of the wine of God’s sunshine in his eternal communion that knows no restrictions or creeds.”(Source) It was through God's creation, and specifically Prince Edward Island, that she found peace. In a hobby of photography, she sometimes captured those dear to her on the land she loved. As a writer, she also found comfort in the invention of a character who lived in search of ‘kindred spirits’, who sought out each moment in its capacity for intense emotion, often joy. Is there a place that gives you that deep and abiding sense of peaceful connection to God?

From New Brunswick, hikers cross the Confederation Bridge on to
the Confederation Trail in Prince Edward Island. (Source)

LC† Stories of the Land is a project of
Lutherans Connect / Lutheran Campus Ministry Toronto
Join us on Facebook. Follow us @LutConnect

DAY 22

"Sunday Morning on the Grand River" by Gary Simmons

Hamilton to Brantford Rail Trail

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A Greeting
"Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear to my cry;
do not hold your peace at my tears.
(Psalm 39:12)

A Reading
Thus says the Lord:
A voice is heard in Ramah,
lamentation and bitter weeping.
Rachel is weeping for her children;
she refuses to be comforted for her children,
because they are no more.
there is hope for your future, says the Lord:
your children shall come back to their own country.
(Jeremiah 31:15;17)

Music


Meditative Verse
This is my comfort in my distress,
that your promise gives me life.
(Psalm 119:50)

A Poem
Sweet human love for others,
Deep as the sea,
God-sent unto my neighbour --
But not to me.

Sometime I'll wrest from others
More than all this,
I shall demand from Heaven
Far sweeter bliss.
- from "In Grey Days", a peom by E. Pauline Johnson
found in her book Flint and Feather: The Complete Poems of E. Pauline Johnson

Verses for the Day
Therefore walk in the way of the good,
and keep to the paths of the just.
For the upright will abide in the land,
and the innocent will remain in it.
(Proverbs 2:20-21)

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"Canoeing Paris to Brantford", Grand River Conservation Authority

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A STORY
This video was created as a college media project by Hannah Saunders, a Delaware/Mohawk woman
from the Six Nations of the Grand River. In her story, the media and political voices on the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women are contrasted with the personal voices closer to her own experience. The video was made in 2015 prior to the federal election. With grateful thanks to Hannah for sharing the film with us.


From the end of the Voyageur Trails at Spanish, a series of short linked trails brings the traveler south through Sudbury, North Bay, Huntsville, Barrie to Guelph, Kitchener, Brantford and Hamilton in southwestern Ontario. There the main trail offers two off-shoot branches: one toward Windsor and the other toward Niagara. The piece that connects on the main artery of the trail is called the Hamilton to Brantford Rail Trail and it runs on the treaty lands of the Six Nations of the Grand River, the largest reserve in Canada and the only place in North America where the six nations of the Iroquois (Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscarora) live together. Today's storyteller is more behind the scenes than in front of the camera. Her watchful eye measures the difference between how people speak in the public space about this crisis, including political leaders and the voices of the mothers and women and girls of her own community. The children of today's music video live near the Highway of Tears in British Columbia reminding us of the nation-wide aspect of this crisis. Towards the end of Hannah's video, we see the word "thank you" in the six languages of her community, even as we see a woman writing the words "Am I Next?" With the call for justice, the film expresses gratitude for those who make space to listen. How can we honour this?
How does youthful hopefulness amid fear challenge you today?

The Hamilton to Brantford Rail Trail forms the connecting
piece of The Trans Canada Trail between the main east-west
artery and the two offshoot trails to Windsor and Niagara. (Source)

LC† Stories of the Land is a project of
Lutherans Connect / Lutheran Campus Ministry Toronto
Join us on Facebook. Follow us @LutConnect

DAY 2

"Tundra Light" by Joseph

The Dempster Highway

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A Greeting
Teach me to do your will, for you are my God.
Let your good spirit lead me on a level path.
(Psalm 143:10)

A Reading
With you is wisdom, she who knows your works
and was present when you made the world;
Send her forth from the holy heavens,
that she may labour at my side,
and that I may learn what is pleasing to you.
For she knows and understands all things,
and she will guide me wisely in my actions.
(Wisdom 9:9a; 10-11) 

Music

Artists: Diyet and Nive Nielsen

Meditative Verse
Without eyes there is no light;
without knowledge there is no wisdom.
(Sirach 3:25)

A Meditative Saying
Amma Synclectica said:
In the beginning, there is struggle and a lot of work
for those who come near to God. But after that,
there is indescribable joy.
It is just like building a fire: At first it's smoky and
your eyes water, but later you get the desired result.
Thus we ought to light the divine fire in ourselves
with tears and effort.
from Desert Wisdom: Sayings from the Desert Fathers,
Introduced by Henri J.M. Nouwen; translations and art by Yushi Nomura


Verse for the Day
Listen to me, my faithful children,
and blossom like a rose growing by a stream of water.
(Sirach 39:13)

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Panorama of Wright Pass - Dempster Highway - Yukon by Adam Jones

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A STORY


The trailhead of The Trans Canada Trail at the Arctic is the Mackenzie River Trail, a waterway which we will visit in coming days. The first land trail begins approximately 200 kilometres south at the start of the Dempster Highway, which stretches north-south from Inuvik to Dawson. On both rough gravel and paved road, hikers walk on the traditional lands of the Gwich'in peoples of many First Nations: Gwich'in territory runs across the areas also known as the northern parts of Alaska and the Yukon and Northwest Territories. Tundra, black spruce forests and long ranges of mountains fill the landscape. In today's story, a woman of the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in First Nation remembers her own mother, by telling stories to her daughter. The daughter's work in turn continues the work of her grandparents in relationship to the land. When Jesus walked in the wilderness, he walked on land once traveled by his ancestors. How do you experience the land you live on? What are your family ties to it? Who are the storytellers in your region who could help you learn its deeper and older history?

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Interested to know more?
Links and resources for further exploration:
Joe and Annie Henry, Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in First Nation elders whose family are in today's story.
Land claims in the Dempster Highway corridor history:
Watershed protection, Yukon-News story.
Together Today for our Children Tomorrow, land claims document prepared by First Nations peoples of the Yukon in 1973

The Dempster Highway portion of
The Trans Canada Trail appears in yellow. (Source)

LC† Stories of the Land is a project of
Lutherans Connect / Lutheran Campus Ministry Toronto
Join us on Facebook. Follow us @LutConnect