JESSE THISTLE – A HUMAN TRIUMPH
It is something to give joy to the heart of God and to us.
He is about 42 now but indigenous Canadian Jesse Thistle has found his feet
after an almost unbelievably broken life. His father, an indigenous Canadian
from the Algonquin tribe, in trouble with the law, ran away from home and met
up with another indigenous Canadian from the Métis-Cree tradition with whom he had three sons,
Jesse being the youngest. Sonny, the father, was soon in trouble again and his
wife ran away with the children when they were still small. He caught up with
her and took the children back but neglected them. They ended up in ‘white’
homes, among people, who in the 1960s, despised and tried to scrub out the
indigenous culture.
Jesse ended up on drugs and living wild. It is a dreadful
story but slowly his grandmother and then his mother and finally a girl, Lucie,
came into his life. He began to see another way was possible and, when he realised
(it had been hidden from him) his mother was a Métis-Cree,
he researched her history, and so his own. He found they were a noble tribe who
fought for their land and their freedom against the Canadian settlers in the
1880s. He put himself to school and learnt to read and do maths. He shone and
was offered a post at York University in Toronto where he is now working on his
PhD.
It is a story of rejection, destitution and redemption.
Despite the pain of it all it is hard not to rejoice once again at the sheer
resilience people have and their ability to survive unspeakable trauma. After
all, what are we here for but to fight these battles and win? Shakespeare said
famously, ‘all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.’
True, but all the world’s also a workshop, where men and woman mould their
destinies by their decisions. And we can rejoice in the writers who bring us
these stories. They tell us of the plague we are living through. They tell us
Trump and Biden and climate change and North Korea. But on the same page they
tell us of Jesse Thistle and his triumph over the snares life laid for him.
Jesse’s new-found life did not end with himself. It drove him
to compassion for his fellow Canadians who endured similar histories. He wrote
and spoke on ‘homelessness’ as something that goes well beyond not having a
roof over your head. A roof is one thing but kinship, land, culture, language
and spirituality were also wrenched from the indigenous people and made them
‘homeless’. Jesse spreads his compassion to reach out to veterans returning
from war and the elderly unable to live with their children. Kinship is a key
value: it extends to visiting, hospitality and relationships. It makes you who
you are. Without it you are lost as he was for ten years or more as he drifted
from dead end to dead end. All of this could be written about Africa.
When an evil spirit shouted at Jesus, ‘I know who you are’, it
was speaking the truth. But Jesus told it, ‘Be quiet!’ There was no way the
people in that synagogue could understand then. It would take time. They thought
he could solve all their problems at a stroke. But life is not like that. Jesus
knew the struggle with evil would be a long haul – for individuals – and for
the world. We are still at it all these centuries later. Each one and all of us
together have to engage in that struggle. There are setbacks but there are also
victories. Jesse Thistle’s story one of those victories; a human triumph forged
in the workshop of life.
31 January 2012 Sunday
4B Deut 18:15-20 1
Cor 7 :32-35 Mk 1:21-28