The apology

True remorse is never just a regret over consequence; it is a regret over motive. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960

Yesterday, I had coffee with a peer from another organization I work with on planning strategies for ending homelessness. One of the challenges of ending something as insidious as homelessness is, "the frailty of the human condition. We are all fragile human beings," he said. He then went on to talk about his own struggles with finding the life of his dreams, with living his purpose.

Yesterday, I had a TV crew in to interview First Nations clients about their feelings around a recent Apology made by the Government of Canada regarding the Residential School System that decimated the native populations during its fifty year history. They interviewed one client, a 74 year old Native man who spends his days pushing a shopping cart, looking for bottles. At 74 he is a fragile man. Beaten down by life, beaten down by a past he cannot walk away from, he keeps walking the same streets, again and again, looking for something to sustain him. "I have been hurt by this," he said. "I call a homeless shelter my home. This is wrong."

The fragility of the human condition.

In this apology, Canada has taken a step towards righting a wrong perpetrated by the Government. In giving voice to what was wrong, I am proud of my government.

But how do you heal the human spirit?

How do you give back to this 74 year old man the life he never had? How do you give him back his pride? His dignity? His respect? How do you make up for a lifetime of abuse?

In his apology, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in the House of Commons, "The treatment of children in Indian residential schools is a sad chapter of our history. Some sought, as was infamously said, to kill the Indian in the child. This policy was wrong, caused great harm and has no place in our country."

With this apology, we open ourselves up to new possibilities. The past can never be changed, but new tomorrow's can be created when the past is set free so that we can walk with renewed purpose into tomorrow.

Letting go to move on.

With every apology there is an invitation for the one who has apologized to step across the chasm separating their differences to embrace their commonalities.

I am glad for the First Nations people that my government found the courage to speak up and apologize.

I am thankful that my government has given me the opportunity to change my mind, to alter my thinking about what we did to create this abuse upon an entire nation.

The challenge now is for every Canadian to speak up and change their minds about what went wrong, about what happened to an entire nation of people. To let go of the stereotypes, to let go of the labels and to step away from our past pre-conceived notions that are terminated in punchlines of jokes where, "The only good Indian is a dead Indian."

To create a better tomorrow for every Canadian, we must change our beliefs. Beliefs that call First Nations, 'drunken Indians'. Beliefs that label them bums, good for nothings and a host of other derogatory language that would keep them in their place.

It's time to acknowledge as Chief Phil Fontaine stated in the House when he responded to the apology, "What happened today signifies a new dawn on the relationship between us and the rest of Canada... We are all part of one garment of destiny. The ties that bind us are deeper than those that separate us. We still have to struggle, but now we are in this together."

The human condition. It binds us. It ties us together. It is our destiny.

Separated by the divide of our judgements, we cannot connect to the fragile threads of our human condition, that place where when we walk in the magnificence of the beauty of the spirits journey, we are connected to the our collective right to be great.

We are all fragile human beings imbued in the human spirit.

Nothing can give a man back a past he never had. Nothing can change the past he lived. No matter how many times we apologize, until we change the look in our eyes, we will continue to see the same reflection.

The question is: What old beliefs do you cling to for fear of changing your mind? What apologies do you hold back on so that you can continue to be right about something that is wrong? Are you willing to change your mind?