Friday, March 27, 2026
The hoodoos at Writing On Stone—a place full of significance and meaning to the Blackfoot, and a reminder of the call to national repentance and repair
Today’s reading starts with the seventh plague—hailstorms of epic proportions—and I can imagine things in Egypt had to be Very Not Good. I grew up in rural southern Manitoba, and one of the things I miss the most are the epic summer thunderstorms. Nothing compares to sneaking out as a teen at 2 am to lay in a field and watch the sky open up with torrents of rain, alight with sheets of lightning punctuated with loud peels of thunder. Bliss. The farmers, on the other hand, weren't always quite as ecstatic, and I’ve never heard one pray for hail. It’s devastating when crops are ruined by hail, and given this is the seventh devastating event Egypt has seen, you have to wonder why this Pharaoh is being so stubborn.
There’s a joke among millennials floating around on the internet, noting the string of “unprecedented" and “once in a lifetime” events we keep witnessing and there are weeks when I feel that keenly (then remind myself we’re not from the first generation to feel this way). Many of the events feel like wake-up calls, highlighting inequalities that are baked into all of our social, cultural, and political systems. In that context, it’s hard not to see Pharaoh’s reflection in my mirror. How many movements for social justice have we seen in the last decade? How many calls from marginalized groups have pointed out inequalities and oppression?
Psalm 18 is one of those passages I’ve underlined many times. I deeply feel David's cries to God for help in the face of injustice. How many times have I, particularly in more recent years as a disabled woman, felt hopelessly entangled by all these forces? How many times have I had to fight for basic access to inaccessible spaces, or remind people in meetings to talk to me and not just my husband? How many people have written me off as aggressive, cold, and rude—simply because my autistic communication is different and I missed a bunch of social queues? I look at the way disability support is being slashed everywhere, and I just want to sob and rage. So many “cords of entanglement.”
But—and yeah, unfortunately for my pride, there is a real big but—how many times have I been on the other side? I don’t have a monopoly on struggle or pain or oppression. There are doors (metaphorically, but it also works literally) I can walk or roll my wheelchair through, simply because I’m perceived differently as a white woman. My struggles are still almost always taken more seriously because of the colour of my skin. There are ways I am Saul, desperately holding onto the shred of power I do have, chasing David, and climbing over others to get high enough on the social ladder to fulfill my perceived needs. It’s time to pull out a different colour pen, and do the uncomfortable work of seeing myself alongside Saul.
And—yes, unfortunately for our collective pride, there is a real big and—I think there’s a call to do this collectively too. To ask ourselves—as a church, city, province and nations—hard questions and wrestle with answers that don’t paint us in our best light. Are there narratives where we frame ourselves as the oppressed persecuted church, all the while we are the “cords of death” for others? When we are angry at our situation and at the world around us, where and at whom are we directing that choking fear and rage? In recent days, I’ve seen us, in our city and province, aim that emotional energy at trans, disabled, and indigenous folks, as well as immigrants—all folks just trying to survive while pushed to the farthest margins. Instead of joining with the oppressed, I think there are times we willingly act as the proxy of Pharaoh, refusing to end the bonds of God’s beloved and precious people.
With today’s passage, I keep thinking that Pharaoh, it came down to economic stability—seemingly logical and easily justifiable reasons. Why would he let go of the ropes holding people he could exploit for cheap and free labor? What would happen to the Egyptian economy if he did? How would releasing the bonds of this oppressed group ripple throughout the rest of his lands? And so, even though he’s watched seven whole “unprecedented events,” AKA plagues, wreak their own havoc on his precious economy and political stability, he still hardens his heart the moment the crisis has passed and returns everything back to the status quo. Like I said earlier, I can’t help but look back on the crises of the last decade, the calls to national and international repentance, and see reflections of Pharaoh in my own mirror. The moment the pressure of the crisis passes, so too does, the pressure to make necessary changes and repairs.
Even as I wrestle with the way the disability community I belong to is affected by these things, I recognize my own hands have a death-knuckled grip on whatever worldly power I can reach. When I am out and about, I am seen as white first, disabled second. As difficult as it is to navigate the medical system as a disabled woman, as hard as I have to fight to be treated as an equal to my non-disabled peers, my white skin protects me and opens doors that are bolted shut to my Black and brown peers. And too often I’m so relieved to finally be let inside the door, I allow that door to be locked behind me—nevermind noticing who is technically present, but in practice not welcome or heard.
These big societal issues weren't originally created by us; They’re a huge, problematic, and really old house we didn’t pick out. Unfortunately, we inherited it so it’s our responsibility. I wrote earlier in Lent about how Danya Ruttenberg’s book is helping me see a process for the repair that must accompany repentance, and she also gives ways through the difficult tangles when a collective is involved. In several places, she notes the way our Canadian government began the process of repentance when it commissioned the Truth and Reconciliation Committee years ago. Yet here we are, multiple governments and years later, and still many of the action items to repair have been left undone. We’ve focused on the actions that required the least money, pride, and emotional work. We do land acknowledgements but seemingly refuse to engage in the real, costly work. We admit to the residential schools—run by churches from multiple denominations, backed by the government—but we often sidestep our own connections to it. And as a country, we are still arguing about spending money to find the bodies of children we killed and buried. We signed legally binding treaties about the land we stole from sovereign Indigenous nations, and now we refuse to keep them. Why? Because this repair would and does cost us. It is heavy and weighty, and requires us to let go of some economic and political power. As a province, we're having many discussions lately about Alberta’s future, and we're too often leaving out this land’s sovereign Indigenous nations. At the end of the day, unfortunately it’s easy to be like Pharaoh and his people. We might not be Pharaoh himself, but still we enjoy benefits that ultimately come at the cost of oppressing others.
I keep feeling the call to wrestle with it all, and especially my own part in it. At one point, Dayna writes, “Our obligation to repentance outlives those to whom we are obligated." This goes well with the often repeated reminder, "We are all Treaty people.” As we’ve been moving through Lent, I have found myself on both sides, deeply feeling other places of harm and damage others need to repair, while being constantly reminded not to neglect where I need to do the repairing. I continue to feel the push to expand my focus from personal repentance to more collective forms of repair. Where am I, where are we, participating in oppression, and must heed the call to let God’s beautiful and precious people go?
Alyssa Visscher
O God Forgive Us for King + Country
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