Canadians of Character
As I write my bulletin article today, I reflect on my road trip to Canada in January. Upon my return, friends and family asked what I did while I was gone. The answer is nothing more than drive. I had a destination in mind, I drove there, spent the night, and returned. I traveled about 2400 miles with my stated purpose to spend time with my thoughts. I chose a Canadian town where a significant event happened to Pam and me. I made it the terminus before turning around to head home.
Entering and leaving Canada, I chose backroad border crossings hoping to avoid lines waiting to cross. Add this to the successes of the trip because to my surprise I was the only person in line. This made the border agents a little more talkative since no one was waiting to get through. I learned a long time ago not to joke with these agents just as with the TSA at the airport. There is nothing I can say they have not heard a hundred times before.
Accordingly, when asked about my reasons for being in Canada, I answered with one word, “memories.” This was the conversation starter. Naturally, follow-ups were in order resulting in sympathies expressed for my purposes. I stayed away from saying I wanted memories of Canada as a foreign country to remain intact before the U.S. made Canada the 51st state. At that point, I figured they would search my luggage and find my cache of drugs I always travel with. While these are all legal in our country, I recently read an article claiming that even carrying Benadryl to foreign countries can make life extremely uncomfortable.
On Wednesday evening after returning home, we had a deacons’ meeting in which I got the border crossing treatment. “Why did you go to Canada?” Followed by objections that all Canadians are liberal nuts. All the deacons agreed we do not want Canada because their presence would dilute Congress and make conservatism go away. Instead, one suggested we should give them Minnesota. This became a teaching moment for me as I explained we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us. I did not know my few days of vacation would spark a political debate over my bad choices.
I have given you about four hundred words that help fill my quota of between 500-650, which is the usual length of an article. It is time to expand with the few words left to give my spiritual observations. I very much like Canadians. I have been across the entire country from Nova Scotia to Victoria with never an unfriendly experience. In fact, I found exceptionally friendly people like a fast-food clerk who referred to me as her fine gentleman customer. I was stunningly embarrassed without a reply.
In our deacons’ meeting, we talked momentarily about pastors arrested in Canada during COVID. Indeed, my observations are that Canada is a wide-open mission’s field. I know there are Baptists and other Christians but in all the times I have been to Canada, I have not noticed much Christian activity. Either there are hardly any in the general population or they do not give any public indications. This bothers me unless kindness is their badge. But then I thought the difference is insignificant when traveling north through California, Oregon, and Washington. We have no persecution and no reason to hide who we are. For goodness’ sake, LBGTQ has taken our country without firing a shot (however, not without violence). They came out and apparently are not going back in any time soon. While I do not advocate their intolerant aggressiveness, we could sure use far better awareness. We shine a small light in a very dark world.
Pastor V. Mark Smith