Where am I?

ʔəm̓i ce:p kʷətxʷiləm – Welcome!

In the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ language of the Musqueam people, my name, Rainbow, is sθәqәlxenәm (roughly pronounced  'sthuckulhenum'). The Musqueam people are the Indigenous people who have lived since time immemorial – an expression meaning since ‘ancient beyond memory or record’ – on the land that I’ve called ‘home’. I am a settler on this land, having immigrated roots like most Canadians, from another place. For my family and me, it has been about 30 years. For the Musqueam people, their oral histories date back to match local geology and archaeology at least 9,000 years. Yet, they warmly call me, as a new neighbour, siyey̓e – a word meaning ‘kin’ – not because I’m special, but because the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ language actually doesn’t have a pronoun word that conceptualizes anyone as anything other than kin. We are all family.

My past blogs have been largely about my musings from living abroad. This blog is a little bit different, in that it will be my musings from being home, in the land that Musqueam calls tumulɬ – the word meaning ‘earth’. But because it rolls off the tongue a little bit easier, this blog is called ‘Turtle Island’, the name that many other Indigenous nations across North America use for this land, based on a Creation story of a turtle that has offered its back as a home to land-dwelling humans, animals, and plants. My journey to this land is relatively new, having started to learn anything about the Indigenous peoples of this particular land only about two years ago. But I hope to share some interesting and important perspectives from Indigenous peoples that I have come to reckon with as truth – about who they are, their lands, and their experiences of colonization –  and what we are called to do in response to those truths. 

My reflections come from my perspective as a settler, but also fundamentally as a Christian – a Christian that has grown up immersed in Biblical narratives and whose life, identity, behaviour, relationships, and understanding of the world and my place in it, has been and is daily shaped by Biblical stories, worldviews, and culture. The approach of this blog is not to teach Christian doctrine/ theology nor Indigenous spirituality – having never studied these in any kind of systematic way, I certainly would not be qualified. These will simply be an offering of some familiar Biblical narratives as a space for reflection on some difficult truths of colonial violence, past and present, in which Christians and the church have been and continue to be complicit – myself included as a settler Christian. The reflections arise from a layperson’s experience of reading scripture, watching beloved easy-to-access resources like The Bible Project, and living in relationship with the God of the Bible, along with some nuggets of insights offered by Indigenous Elders and pastors.

Musqueam Elder Kwes' Kwestin (Jim Kew) teaches that we each journey through life in our own Soul Canoe, and as we rest together at a beach, we bring gifts of paddles for one another that we may use in our journey. I invite you – wherever your Soul Canoe has taken you thus far – to join me at this beach. As we enter this space and journey with a posture of welcome, may we be attentive to what truths God may whisper in our hearts, and what paddles we may find for our journey forward. 

As you begin, consider these reflective questions:

• Who am I?
• Where do I live? Is it significant to me?
• What stories shape my understanding of who I am and my place in the world?