Exile


The Creation narrative of Adam and Eve’s banishment from the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3), away from the place where God dwelt among them, sets the stage for the theme of exile that would become a defining theme of the Israelite/Jewish experience and spirituality. In the book of 2 Kings, the tribes of Israel and Judah were handed over to the imperial powers of Assyria and Babylon, who plundered and destroyed the temple in Jerusalem – the sacred place and sacred city of the Israelites. Already divided as a nation, the tribes of Israel, deported and scattered them within the Assyrian empire, never made it home. The tribes of Judah were transported to the Babylonian empire, forbidden to practice their spiritual traditions (see book of Daniel). Exiled far and held captive from their homeland, away from the divinely-given Promised Land, and without the temple, the Jewish people were not only geographically displaced and alienated in a foreign land: they had become estranged spiritually, and even existentially, from the LORD. They longed to go ‘home’, not only to their land and temple, but to their God. How could we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land? (Psalm 137:4). The book of Lamentations and many of the Psalms are filled with the struggles, sorrows, and longings of exile. What sustained the hope of the Israelites was the prophetic promise, “I [the Lord] will be found by you and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you and bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile” (Jeremiah 29:14).

Some Indigenous peoples express that they find themselves in a place of spatial and spiritual exile - alienated from their land and the spirituality so deeply connected to their land. For many, the legacy of trauma of Residential Schools has obliterated hope, and even recognition, of home. Rev. Dr. Martin Brokenleg, an Indigenous psychologist specializing in cultural healing and resilience, says that dislocation and disorientation is the legacy of colonization: Virtually all the social ills in Indigenous communities today are the result of the disorientation that has occurred for Indigenous populations...If you want to disorient any population, the first thing you must break is their contact with the land, because the land on which they live is the source of their identity, medicines, food, and ability to self-sustain... It’s not just physical, economic, and social... for Indigenous peoples, it’s that emotional, spiritual disorientation that becomes a major complication in life...  It’s the psycho-emotional and spiritual displacement that is equivalent to land displacement that the Doctrine of Discovery is trying to generate in the first place. (Watch this film 16:34-49, 20:59-24:04). For those more readily convinced by credentials, Rev. Dr. Brokenleg is also a graduate of the Anglican Divinity School, and was Vancouver School of Theology’s former Director of Native Ministries and a Professor of First Nations Theology.

In his book, Cree Narrative Memory, Indigenous writer Neal Mcleod puts it this way: Exile is both physical and spiritual; it is the move away from the familiar towards a new and alien space. This new space attempts to transform and mutate pre-existing narratives and social structures. Spiritual exile was the internalization of being taken off the land. Once put away [in residential school], many children never came “home”. Instead they spent their lives ensnared in alcoholism and other destructive behaviours (p. 16).

Questions to consider:
  • How have I experienced 'exile' as spatial or spiritual alienation and disorientation?
  • How does the Indigenous experience of exile resonate with me?


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