Grateful and Confused: Musings for a Hazy Canada Day Morning

 

Everything's rather muted in Muskoka this July 1st. Extreme fire ban means no campfires, no fireworks. Even with the recent rain, no one wants to risk it, especially with so many of our resources redeployed elsewhere, fighting with everything they've got.

The smoke hangs thick day after day, so you don't need to try to convince me too much. It's its own kind of muted; the sun visible but barely, almost as if it's struggling to be seen behind the haze.

In a way, the whole idea of being a patriotic Canadian seems muted to me these past few years, even without fire restrictions on celebrations.

Am I proud to be a Canadian when our land holds so many unmarked graves, and so many are children who never returned to their families?

Am I proud to be Canadian when a large flag attached to a pickup truck makes me cringe, and wish the protest of some didn't claim as its banner the flag of us all?

We hung our larger flag on the deck this year, as has become one of our Canada Day things we do. And I even stuck a little flag in one of the planters so I could get my shot of the deck and water to post today, as - according to FB memory - I've done before.

Yes, I'm proud of Canada's many contributions to technology and athletics and science and progressive society. And I'm glad to live in a country where peaceful protest is allowed, and conflicting opinions can be spoken out loud, and sometimes very loudly if need be.

I'm on the side of being very grateful for our health system, as strained as it is, having experienced first hand the limitations of other ways of doing it.

I'm glad for a government with 'leaders of the opposition' who do their jobs well when they do their jobs well.

I'm grateful for our diversity, even when it shakes me out of my comfort zone from time to time.

So, Happy Canada Day it is.

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God, keep our land.
May we do our part to keep it free.
Lead our leaders as they lead us.
Bring the rains,
and the science,
and the wake up calls,
to heal our land.

May we find our way out of the haze
to those places of clarity
and truth
and understanding.
Amen.

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Whatever's on for your this weekend,
have fun, be safe, be proud, be grateful.