Tag: Canada

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What I Will Remember

With Remembrance Day tomorrow, I find myself faced with a mixture of emotions and feelings again, as a part of what seems to be a yearly mess of thoughts. It’s with a certain amount of timidity that I even write about my feelings at all, since I know that at times the ideas I entertain would perhaps disappoint and hurt people who are close to me – people who have been a part of these wars in the past, and who are personally invested in Remembrance Day. With so many emotions felt on all sides, as my American friends observe Veterans Day, or others Armistice Day, or Poppy Day, I honestly begin with some fear. These feelings run deep in people’s hearts, and I write not meaning to hurt or make light of the loss that people have suffered.

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I hate war. Justifying bloodshed and killing has been a complex, messy, and emotional debate that has gone on for centuries, and I think will continue to do so. Very rarely has there been a just war. Not only that, but even in wars that are deemed ‘just’ by society and history books, there is no shortage of sorrow and death. Try to explain to the woman who lost her child that it was for a just cause that a foreigner took away her child’s life. Or explain to a wife that her husband died holding up the unjust end of the fight, and that the man operating the machine gun who killed him, was doing so out of just sense of duty. War is loss. It is filled with grief, regardless of whether it was deemed just by the people that wrote the history books after.

One of the core purposes of Remembrance Day is to honour and respect those who have died in the conflicts that my country has been involved in. However, along with this, there seems to come an underlying sense that I need to somehow honour the wars in which these people were killed. I know this may not be the case for everyone, and many might disagree; But in honouring someones death for a cause, I do in some way, honour the cause for which he died – something that I really, in right conscience, cannot do. I don’t think that every war Canada has fought in has been an honourable one. Most were far from our soil, and most resulted in the deaths of all kinds of people – both for its own men, those on the other side of the conflict and even those caught in the middle as well. Do I honour these wars? I grieve over them.

Another clause, if you might call it that, of Remembrance Day is the reason we honour these people who died. Time and time again the phrase is repeated, “for giving their lives to preserve the freedom of this country.” Again, I just don’t feel that I can be a part of that statement. I realise that even as I write this, I enjoy freedoms that were given to me as a result of events in the past. I don’t want to cheapen the lives that were lost, but I just don’t feel right about it either. Was the freedom of this country worth the lives of people from another nation? Was my freedom more important than theirs? Even the freedom of this country can be debated as well, seeing as the vast majority of Canadians essentially sit as invaders in a land that we have claimed as our own, from people who enjoyed freedom in this area before its colonisation and occupation. Yes, we have freedom, but we have it while we sit on someone else’s.

At these times I ask myself the question: how would I observe Remembrance Day if I spent it with my German friends, or anyone from the other side of the war? I have lots of friends from Germany. We’re not enemies, yet somehow we are called to honour the lives that were lost while killing people from the opposite side of the conflict. How would I observe Remembrance Day if I spent it with those who had lost family members and had been Canada’s “enemies” in the past? Would I talk about how glad I am to have my freedom and that their ancestors didn’t occupy ‘my’ land? I think I would simply grieve. And I suppose that’s where I have come with regards to Remembrance Day.

I will remember. I will remember the lives that were lost on all sides, in all our wars. I will remember that life is not cheap, and that victory is often simply a label placed over countless heartbeats that have been silenced and broken-hearted people who have lost those they love. I will remember the thousands of stones that stand in countries, marking where humans like me were buried – both those who were fighting and those who weren’t. I will remember the grief. But more than anything, I will remember the true sacrifice that was made, and the singular life that was laid down that “whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life”(Jn. 3:16). Because this was the ultimate act of love, shedding Christ’s own blood rather than our own, though we made ourselves enemies to Him. This is what I will remember.

For me, Remembrance Day is grief; for lives lost on all sides, for humans in any uniform. This is what I will remember.

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Culture Shock

Prior to returning to Canada, I often viewed the term ‘culture shock’ with some degree of skepticism. When here on furlough, people in Canada would always ask me if I experienced ‘culture shock’ when I went to Pakistan, to which I would always answer truthfully, “no.” Having grown up in Pakistan, I simply imagined culture shock as a show of cultural weakness. Culture shock was when people would become overwhelmed with ideas and practices so different from their own, and would find themselves sitting in the shelter of some home, under a fan, unable to take a step out of their door because of the unaccustomed heat. It wasn’t until I actually read some of the symptoms of culture shock that I realized I had experienced the exact same thing, and continue to go through it at different times in my life.

Reading through symptoms such as boredom, withdrawal, homesickness, irritability, anger and disgust, suddenly so many of my feelings during my first year in Canada began to make sense. Very rarely was I overwhelmed by a culture that I didn’t expect. Canadian culture was relatively known to me. I had been back at different times in my childhood to visit relatives, and even went to school in Ontario for a couple short periods of time. I certainly knew what I was going back to, but simply knowing didn’t make the ‘going back’ any easier. I found I had little patience for aspects of life or culture in Canada that went so much against what I was used to. I hated the stress that was put on individualism, where people pass each other in cars, ignore each other on the streets, and try as hard as they can not to impede on anyone else’s personal space. Whatever happened to squeezing through a crowd in order to go where you wanted? What happened to the sounds, smells and colours that were supposed to fill the outside air? Life in Canada seems so much more antiseptic, cold, and and unfriendly.

I would find myself constantly comparing my life as it had been in Pakistan with what it had become here, in Canada. Canada was always worse, of course. I would feel lost at times, but somehow it was Canada’s fault. I felt alone, or that I couldn’t relate to other people now and then, but I always told myself it was their fault – they were so different, so Canadian, so bland, just like potatoes. I hardly ever make potatoes for myself here, for exactly the same reasons: they are so common, ordinary and banal. I have them everywhere I go – why make them myself? I always make rice. Perhaps I do this partly out of protest and a sense of nostalgia – as another way to remind myself that my eating habits aren’t ‘Canadian’. But at the same time, I do it because I love it. I love that it’s not Canadian and that people don’t eat it all the time here – so I do.

I always felt like a stranger in Canada, though no one around me could tell from the way I looked. Being born a Canadian, with Canadian parents, there’s little I can do about the fact that I look caucasian. Canadians still treat me like a Canadian, which I am not. Worse still are the internationals, who treat me like Canadians as well, not realizing that my own life and experiences are probably very close to their own, and that I might be going through the very same struggles that they are. Often I’ve wished I looked more like a stranger outwardly, so that at least people would treat me the way that I felt about myself. It’s hard when your skin says you should fit in, but your heart and all that’s in it won’t let you.

I hated that everything was clean here. At times I would have to hold back the urge to throw garbage on the ground out of spite for Canada and its perfectness. Cars here weren’t covered in scratches and held together with tape or odd parts. Everything was different. I resisted being Canadian. I didn’t want to be one, and I didn’t want to become like one. I fought the natural tendency to adapt and assimilate, because I wanted to stay the way I was – I didn’t want to fit in. As I made friends and found myself out with them, stopping in at a Tim Hortons, or going sledding in the winter, I would catch myself enjoying normal things and getting used to life in Canada. However, I didn’t actually want to become accustomed to it all. I wanted to be different. I wanted to be Pakistani.

In some ways things haven’t changed. I still hate aspects of Canadian culture that revolve around things like materialism, individualism or selfishness. I still feel that I’ll never be Canadian, but I realize that I’ll never really be Pakistani either. I’ve come to enjoy many things about Canada, and I appreciate my friends and the fun we have. People are people, no matter where they are. I certainly don’t want my life here in Canada to last forever, but I appreciate it for what it is, and I am glad for it during the time that I am here. I suppose a big part of this was realizing that the Canadian and the Pakistani in me don’t have to be at war. I can find aggravating aspects in both cultures and choose to leave them behind, and I can find the parts of each culture that are precious and valuable and choose hold on to them in my life. I don’t have to be one or the other – because I’m not. I’ll always be a little mixed up over who I am, where I belong, or what my culture is, but I suppose that is really my culture after all: that of a third culture kid. I’m always too much at home to be a stranger and too much a stranger to be at home.

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Angels Drive Red Pickup Trucks

There are times, when for a brief moment, you know you are exactly where you are supposed to be, doing just what you are supposed to do.

My Sunday turned out to be quite an extraordinary day – extremely tiring and full of emotion. Through a series of seemingly random events, I found myself in downtown Red Deer picking up a man’s personal belongings from his locker at a care center for the homeless before I was to drive him to be with his father in Hobbema, about an hour North of the city. While there, piling things like shampoo, a toothbrush, random clothes and papers into plastic bags, we were met by the man’s nephew, Justin, obviously very distraught, shaking and on the edge of tears. Afraid of how his uncle Les would react, he wanted only to talk to me, and with a faltering voice, told me he was on his way to the hospital. As he began to explain the events of the past Friday night, tears streamed down his face and his thin frame shook. He told me drug after drug that he took that night, one after the other, before he finally broke down sobbing, while his uncle Les and I hugged him. That wasn’t the first time I cried that day, and it certainly wasn’t going to be the last.

Before long we were on our way to the hospital. My car smelled like cigarette smoke already, thanks to a morning with Les, which mixed with the smell of alcohol that still hung in the car after driving a drunk coworker home a few days before. Soon we were at the hospital and, after parking, I made my way to the toll machine to pay for a parking pass, having no idea how long we would be here with Justin. It was around 1:00pm at the time, and just before I reached the machine, a red pickup, on its way out of the parking lot stopped, and a man held a parking pass out of his window, asking if I needed one. “It’s paid till 6:40”, he told me. I held the pass in my hand as the truck drove away. I couldn’t believe it. As I placed the ticket on my dash, I burst out into tears. Even now as I write this, I can’t help crying.

I just couldn’t believe it. It was as if God revealed to me, for a second, that seam where earth and heaven meet, and for a brief moment, the walls that normally surround the world we walk in were clear as glass. I wasn’t alone. There was someone far bigger than me who wanted me just where I was. I don’t know if it was an angel driving that red pickup truck, but I do know that God all but handed me a parking pass that day. And as I joined Les and Justin to walk to emergency, I’m not sure they quite understood why I had tears in my eyes.

Later in the day, as Justin called his grandmother a number of times, and then his mom, I worried a little over the amount of money I had left on my phone. Being a ‘pay-as-you-go’ phone, I wasn’t sure just how long it would last, or if it would make it through all the calls that he needed to make. But then it struck me that I didn’t have any ordinary phone – I had a phone that would last for as long as Justin would need, and as long as God desired it to. I had a phone that was under God’s provision, and rather than worry, a smile spread across my face instead.

After a long day of talking to various nurses and consultants in the hospital, Justin and I were let out of the hospital to wait for his grandmother to come pick him up. Les was already on his way to Hobbema with a friend of mine, who came to take him after I had realized Justin and I would be awhile. As we got into my car, I checked the time: 6:34pm, with my parking pass paid till 6:40. I just couldn’t believe it.

I still have the parking pass. It sits on my desk as I write, reminding me that all we do has a purpose, and that we serve a God who opens doors, and who provides just what we need. On Sunday I got a glimpse of what God’s provision looks like, and I don’t want to forget it.

(Please note that actual names have not been used to protect the identity of the subjects)

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A Poor Lost Little Sign

I apologize to anyone who holds very dearly to Saskatchewan, to those who love it, or call it home. I enjoy Saskatchewan a lot myself, but I seem to enjoy it a great deal less when I have to drive anywhere in it for any length of time. Last month I found myself driving alone to Lumsden, Saskatchewan to help out at a camp for two weeks (those who have read some of my earlier blogs will have heard about some of my experiences there already).

What I wanted to share here, though, for all who would like to enjoy it, is something I drove past on my way to camp. As I was driving along, I passed a sign that read ‘point of interest’, indicating that this point was somewhere left of the highway, down a smaller country road. Naturally, I was a little intrigued, and and strained my eyes down this road to see this ‘point of interest’. In fact, this interesting place was so interesting to me that I took a picture of it as I drove by, which I share here for you to see.

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Yes, for those confused, this is the ‘point of interest’. I’m not quite sure why or to whom this would at all be interesting, but remember, this is Saskatchewan. I suppose maybe for some, the sight of another green and yellow field would be very interesting – especially if they happened to have their eyes closed for the past seven hours of travel as they passed by field after field, just like it. Or perhaps it’s a ploy to make people think twice about the monotony of fields they see – to trick those who haven’t been paying attention into believing that this may just have been the first field they’ve seen in the hundreds of kilometers they have already travelled.

Whatever reason the sign has for being there, I think it is lost. But I don’t blame the sightless sign. Poor thing, facing the road the way it is, one can’t expect it to know the emptiness that it advertises. It may never have been turned around to see the view for itself. Perhaps it has never travelled in his life and hasn’t seen that by the time people reach it, they have had their fill of green flatness – they’ve had enough. Perhaps this little sign has been fed a lie. Lost and sightless as it is, it simply stands, like a blind prophet, trying to communicate with the busy stream of traffic that hurdles on by – alone, voiceless and misunderstood. I don’t blame the sign; I pity it.

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Catching Frogs

“Do you want to wake up at five tomorrow morning?” I asked one of my campers before bed. It was the night before the closing day of that camp week, after a long day of activities.
“No!” He said. “Wait, what for?”
“To catch some frogs.”

My camper had been very disappointed. A couple days earlier I had let him and a few other boys catch frogs during our swim time in the dugout, and had lent them a container from my bag as well. He had caught a number of frogs, and had transferred them into smaller containers, hoping to take a couple home with him when he went. However, that same evening he had been told by another counsellor that he couldn’t keep the frogs in containers over night. As a result, he had let them go that evening, hoping that he would be able to catch some more the following day when the whole camp went to the dugout for games and swimming. But, once he got there, he wasn’t allowed to go to the side of the dugout that had the frogs, as he needed to stay with the rest of the group. And there he was, at bedtime that night, feeling a little disappointed about the whole thing. So, when I asked if he wanted to catch frogs the next morning he had a huge smile on his face. “Yes!”

That night as I lay on my bed, I wrestled through the situation. I had already been deliberating over what to do before I had even asked him. Taking a camper all the way over to the dugout early in the morning, by myself, with no life-jackets (they were required in and around the dugout)? I just couldn’t decide if this was something where I should be asking for permission, or asking for forgiveness after the fact, if I needed. I thought back on all my past boyhood disappointments. Rocks I couldn’t take with me when we left places. Sticks I couldn’t carry home. I can see why my parents didn’t let me at the time – and I’m glad for it now. But, how hard was it to spend some time one morning helping a boy catch a few frogs?

So, at five in the morning, my alarm went off and I strained my eyes into the darkness. ‘This is ridiculous,’ I thought. ‘There’s no way I’m catching frogs at five in the morning – in the dark.’ I closed my eyes again, and dipped in and out of sleep for almost an hour. Then, just before six, I woke up enough to look out the window again. It was just beginning to get light – enough to see frogs, at least. So, after a lot of shaking, poking and whispering his name, I finally woke my camper up. And a couple minutes later, there we were, two boys, both in hoodies and shorts, making our way up through the trees and over the hill to the dugout to catch some frogs.

It’s wasn’t very long before we got to the spot. With our ankles in the water we walked through the grass and small reeds, stopping when small spots of green would bounce across the grass, or plop into the water. I very quickly found out that I’m really bad at catching frogs. I really am. I would get so close – close enough to feel their little bodies slipping through my fingers, or bouncing off my hand, but I never got one. Thankfully I could at least keep them from getting to the water so that my companion could pounce on them and hold them gently in his hands. There’s something about seeing a little boy chasing after frogs that brings a smile to your face. It’s like seeing a bird in flight, or a dolphin jumping out of the surf – just to see them doing what they do best. He was a little boy, and had obviously mastered the skill of frog catching – something I must have missed out on in my youth.

Half an hour later two boys with three green leopard frogs, and one brown wood frog, headed back over the hill and across the grass toward the cabins. Their flip flops squeaked with water as they walked, and their faces beamed with smiles as they carried their precious amphibians in their little orange container. Sometimes God sends along little blessings and encouragements, just to remind you that there is a reason you are doing what you are doing. For me, this was just that.