Just Above the Maze

At the very top of front page, I read it this morning in the Calgary Sun, MAJOR MOVE: With latest defection, PM effectively has his majority. No surprise to my cynical head, I turned to the details on page 4. That’s where I gave this head a shake. Surprise? Indeed surprise! The defector is an NDP Member of Parliament, not yet another Conservative; definitely enough to keep me reading.

Lori Idlout, the MP from Nunavut in Canada’s north, is the latest turncoat. Reading on in the article, I learn she made a decision that had to be, totally in communication with her constituents. In their local Nunatsiaq News, Idlout says it’s a crucial moment not only for Nunavut but for all of Canada. “With new threats against our sovereignty and pressures on the wellbeing of people throughout the North, we need a strong and ambitious government that makes decisions with Nunavut – not only about Nunavut.”

Ms Idlout claims she is listening to her community. I am tempted to wade in with opinion, questions about national pros and cons, but without further  orientation…? [Reading a bit further down in that paper there they are, opinions in her constituency almost like our Alberta locals, except in our city of Calgary we actually pay some journalists, like Rick Bell, for their opinionating].

At present we are in a testy, restless world! On this occasion however, I am inclined to some restraint, and almost immediately there is the vantage of another, and this not a professional journalist, but very much a professional. It’s from someone who just got jilted. Heather McPherson, a fellow-NDP and one of the candidates for leader of the national Party, speaks somehow kindly, even as I can only imagine the feeling that must be included in her brief words. Writing to members of the party, she begins, “Learning that Lori Idlout crossed the floor to join the Liberals was tough. We worked together for years, fighting Liberal cuts, arrogance and hypocrisy.” Then she doesn’t go on and on about that. “I’m sad to see her go.” End of paragraph, and her message goes on. There’s work to do.

There’s something in today’s front page event which reminds me of some considerable reading I have done in the last while – not specifically on topic of politics, but very much in sync with the above. Probably like most of my neighbors, friends, and perhaps even a few enemies, I am deeply concerned about today’s lay of the land, not only North America, but Europe, the Middle East and even farther afield. And indeed I am discouraged and disgusted by the dishonesty and moral depravity of those who get elected as leaders. It’s a commentary on us, the citizens of this world, not only those leaders.

So coincidentally (providentially?) my recent reading has been not about today’s news, and yet precisely on topic. Two books written by two very different people, one a lawyer of fifty years’ professional service, and the other a mid-career social worker. They write from their vantage, and therein my surprise and inspiration. The lawyer is a Mennonite with family roots in Holland, describes the sojourn of ‘his people’, much beyond his immediate clan. It is an analysis of his forbears’ journey through Poland, Prussia, Russia, and the two-staged emigration to Canada. [i] The other, an Anishinaabe Ukrainian Indigenous writer, [ii] provides seemingly endless Bible examples of kinship that stretch way down deep below and beyond today’s colonial interpretations which most Christians find themselves in. Walter Braul’s excellent historical analysis has no reference to personal faith. Patty Krawec’s personal faith is consistently evident as she writes about kinship, not only in New Testament, but also very much in the Old!

I mention these two authors today because I must. Both of their writings provide not only solid believable information on their respective lineages, but much food for thought on the shaping of nations and us beings within and beyond, over the centuries. Today I see them simply as timely persons on scene for the mazy topic above. Also I see Lori Idlout and Heather McPherson as timely contributors to the troubled profession of politics today. Lori did what she had to do, because we all know that our Prime Minister’s liberals, egocentric as they are and very limited in analyses, at this point should receive the support of this one specific politician (not all of us, Lord have mercy)! There are many other considerations, but as an Inuit lawyer from among her people in the North, she may help Canada’s Arctic sovereignty to be more believable than if she would not participate. That was a hard call and I believe Heather McPherson understands this, and so will not villainize a colleague. Such dignity is what would qualify her as next Prime Minister of Canada (just saying 😉).

These other two writers probably qualify as my kin in the overall scheme of things. At any rate, they have been feeding my head and my heart. I see their  wisdom just above the maze. Many friends and relatives (but perhaps not kin) have no time for any of this mid-air discernment. They are up or down, all or nothing, just like the MAGA in the U.S; no more discernment needed for them. They know the signs of the times, and in spite of the instruction received from Jesus about not being preoccupied with apocalypticisms (Acts 1:8), they know He will return tonight to meet all of us true believers (1 Thess. 4:17). Many others, also my friends, attribute such beliefs to fundamentalist ignorance. It is important to "rise above" this (Anybody remember the Rankin Family singers of the 1990's?).

From within this world’s pluralistic, multicultural vantage I dare not condemn nor qualify politicians nor writers nor people with slightly different angles on the truth - or on political parties. At least I can say this today! 

Prophecies? Being prophetic?  Well, that's another topic, coming up soon. For now I quote another scripture, “Not everyone who says Lord, Lord …” (Matt. 7:21a).

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[i] Walter Braul, Russian Mennonites: A Broken Path to Civility (Altona,MB: Friesen Press, 2025).

[ii] Patty Krawec, Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future (Minneapolis: Broadleaf Books, 2022):