Ecclesiastes tells us, “All things are vanity! Here is one who has labored.. and yet to another must leave his property and possessions.” In the Gospel Jesus responds to a man worried about his property and possessions by telling him, “Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions.”
Vanity is usually associated with pursuing what is personally superficial. We prioritize personal appearance and may neglect personal character. Today’s readings show vanity also has a more encompassing social sense. Vanity includes pursuing what is socially superficial. We prioritize social possessions, and may neglect social character. The readings caution us to not pursue possessions. Doing so makes for an empty life, void of meaning. Worse, in prioritizing possessions over people, we develop a harmful character, both personally and socially. It is the harmful personal and social character that is evident in colonialism. Colonialism’s prioritizing of possessions over people is in the news with Pope Francis’ visit to Canada. Colonialism is defined as political control of another country, bringing in settlers, and exploiting it financially. Colonialism does its harm within the much larger harm of capitalism. Capitalism prioritizes possessions over people, and, it prioritizes the possession of people. Capitalism is ancient. Also known as the free market, it originated in the slave market where free labor was forced from people owned, or possessed, by masters. Colonialism generally refers to several hundred years of European and U.S. capitalists reducing Indigenous people across the world to being possessions; including Indigenous people of Canada. Of note during the Pope’s visit to Canada is the time period of the late 1800’s to the 1990s, in which over 150,000 indigenous children were separated from their families and interned in residential schools. Used as possessions by their ‘Christian’ masters, many of the children were starved, beaten for speaking their native languages, and sexually abused. Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission called it “cultural genocide.” Pope Francis apologized for this harm, “With shame and unambiguously, I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the indigenous peoples… many members of the Church and of religious communities cooperated, not least through their indifference, in projects of cultural destruction and forced assimilation.” After Francis’ apology, Chief Wilton Littlechild, a residential school survivor and member of Parliament and of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, placed a war bonnet on the Pope’s head. Some Indigenous people were deeply harmed by this action. They were hurt that a symbol sacred to them, the feathered headdress, was now possessed by the “figurehead of the colonial systems of oppression that continue to impact Indigenous communities.” The war bonnet was believed denigrated in a pageant showcasing vanity; social appearance triumphing over social character. The transferring of possession of the war bonnet was viewed as faux reconciliation triumphing over the real work of dispossessing an organization of its hierarchy responsible for abusing Indigenous people, children especially. It makes sense then that Indigenous women were far more deeply hurt. They were hurt that a symbol harmful to them, the war bonnet, still possessed meaning, though it too symbolizes a system of oppression that continues to impact Indigenous communities, patriarchy. The war bonnet, like all military paraphernalia across cultures, communicates possession of male rank over subordinated women in a given warrior culture. Thus, all military items in every culture are their own mark of vanity. Each is a social possession prioritized by a harmful patriarchal society that continues to treat women as possessions. The suffering and atrocities inflicted upon women include domestic violence, physical assault, rape, and murder. The prioritizing of military possessions amidst such harm is evidence of patriarchy’s harmful social character. It is not only the Doctrine of Discovery that needs to be repudiated; also colonialism, capitalism, and patriarchy.
“O Great Spirit, give me the power to walk gently on the grass so that when I bend it down, it has the strength to bend back up again when I have passed.” Native American Prayer
Prayer: Indigenous Brothers and Sister, Forgive me for the hurt I do to you.
Question: How can we move forward with the real work of prioritizing people and dismantling the possession system that still harms us?
July 31, 2022 Gospel Luke 12:13-21 Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time