Finding Joy In An Unlikely Place August 26, ‘09

By David Milne

Workers in cars and pickup trucks lined up on the road near the gate. A few opponents of the dump site heckled them from the south side of the road, the non-injunction breaking side. John, an older local settler, stood in the middle of the road blocking a worker’s vehicle, but without support he’d soon move out of the way. It was 6:20 in the morning, Monday, August 17.

As I stood on the south side of the road, opposite the gate, I asked myself “Well, David, what are you going to do?” In recent months I’ve felt adrift, unsure of my calling to Christian Peacemaker Teams. In my prayers I had petitioned God for guidance but the Creator either hadn’t answered or I hadn’t heard. When I joined CPT’s Aboriginal Justice Team outside Dump Site 41, forty kilometres north of Barrie, I told myself “I can just go to fulfill my commitment to the organization and not get too involved.” But I did get involved.

While at the site I took part in healing ceremonies and prayers with Anishinaabe elders. The women, ‘Protectors and Keepers of the Water’, told me their visions about this place. Elders explained the significance of the lodge, the Sacred Fire and the Grandfathers, and I marvelled once again at their appreciation of the whole of Creation and man’s humble place in it. Over the days the mounds of dirt being dug out for the dump grew higher. I pictured lines of trucks emptying loads of garbage into that hole while under that hole sat an aquifer, an underwater lake of pure water. At some point I realized “God is speaking to us through these people”.

In a few minutes the security guard would open the gate. The workers, foreman leading, would drive through in a convoy. Soon the clatter and rumble of bulldozers, trucks, and diggers would trouble our ears and our spirits for a second week. Since the arrests of ten blockaders a few weeks ago and the raid by the police a week ago last Friday, no one had tried to block the gate.

I walked across the road and stood in front of the gate. Immediately Jenn, a young woman, came across too. Bruce came running up the road to me. “I had to park so far away I was afraid it’d be over before I got here!” I laughed despite the scowls on the faces of the workers and the approaching plainclothes officers. Rick, Pat, and John joined us soon after, in all three First Nations people and three settlers.

The public relations team of the O.P.P. wanted us to move “so no one would get arrested or hurt” but I replied “No one here will hurt anyone.” There was much palaver until we stated our terms. “We’ll leave here if the workers will go home and not come back until after the Council votes on August 25” said Jenn. “I can’t negotiate that!” exclaimed Heidi of the PR team.

So we sat in the warming sun waiting to be arrested. Jenn and I read prayers from CPT’s worship book and sang a few hymns. Then Jenn and Pat chanted an Anishinaabe prayer and Pat came down the line with a smudge pot and her eagle feather; we cleansed ourselves in the smoke and with prayer. At one point I asked myself “How am I doing?” I felt puzzled for a moment. I felt joyful and peaceful.

I still treasure this experience despite facing a mischief charge.