I am amazed that I was born in Canada. It has always been such a safe place for me to live. Yesterday, Shirley and I worked on our grass, flower beds and trees in our yard. For lunch, we made tomato sandwiches, and sat on our front porch, and watched all the birds fly all over the place. I never thought once that I should think about dangers that might come upon me. I did not think about hunger, war, drought or corruption by government. I live a really blessed life, and am free from daily struggles to survive.
For sure, I will die of some disease or by accident, but this is true of everybody that lives in this world. And I know all about disease and health problems. But, why am I so blessed to have been born and grown up in Canada? A few years ago, our church sponsored a refugee family from Iraq. They had been living in a camp on the border of Iraq/Syria. Canada and the Mennonite Church heard about their situation, and decided that we must sponsor as many of these families as possible. One elderly lady (not sponsored by our church) said to our group, that she had never lived a life other than that of a refugee. She was born in occupied Palestine with no legal status. Their family went to Jordan, where they had no passports. A few years later, they had to flee to Iraq where they lived well, but had no legal papers there. When Saddam Hussein was deposed, as Palestinians, they were targeted, and so they left and fled through the desert to Syria. When this woman finally arrived in Canada, she and her family were given “landed immigrant“ status, she could finally call someplace, home. A whole lifetime of not feeling like you could settle down and sleep well.
Is my being born in Ontario, Canada, a random act of kindness by God? If my great-great grandparents would have decided to stay in Prussia (Poland) and not gone to the Ukraine, I would not be here? And if my grandfather would not have been killed in 1926, and my father had not become a wanderer, and showed up on my uncle’s farm one day in 1946, where would I be? My mom was working at that farm in Ontario. Random? Or was it all planned by God without my knowledge or input? Must I just accept my life, and get on with it? But, if I did not have free will in my being born here on this earth, why would I think I have any free will now?
These are not new questions. Job asks them in the Old Testament. Jeremiah, a social activist also from the Old Testament, asks why was he born, if he has to suffer. He was the voice of God to the Israelite nation, and he gets persecuted for it. How is that fair for him? The writer of the Psalm 88 laments his life. We do not know what happened to him, but he is very angry at God. It is really nice to have this kind of Psalm in the Bible. The Bible is real people writing about real stuff.
At a recent Mennonite Central Committee fundraising meal, a young girl from Iraq told us her story as a refugee. She told us that we have been fortunate to be born in Canada. She did not deserve the refugee experience that that she and her family has to live through. And why do people give her a hard time? I do not know what to do with her words. I will continue to work at peace and justice as a response to and from God. But, I do it from the comfort of my nice front porch. It is not fair. Why me? …. “for now I only know in part” is my response, it is a feeble one, I know. AMEN.