Episode 14 - The Water Remembers

Two minutes of silence can’t carry the whole story. We lean into the hard questions Remembrance Day raises: how to honor courage without glamorizing war, how to include civilians alongside veterans, and how to keep memory honest when distance invites denial. With Canadian Armed Forces chaplain Capt. Justin McNeil and philosopher Dr. Trudy Govier joining our regulars, we navigate symbols like the red and white poppy, the surge in defense spending, and the chronic underfunding of diplomacy. The aim isn’t to score points; it’s to hold tension: preparedness and restraint, justice and forgiveness, grief and hope.

Justin takes us inside the strange vocation of training for what you hope never happens, and the pastoral work of rehumanization—names, faces, families, artifacts from those with no graves. Trudy probes where reconciliation meets justice, from South Africa’s TRC to today’s conflicts, and how amnesty, accountability, and public repair can clash. We ask what rebuilding must look like after the shooting stops, and why “win and leave” only seeds the next war. Together we explore nonviolent resistance, alliances, and the leverage that shapes negotiations in a world where drones, disinformation, and nationalism have changed the rules.

We also confront the language that primes violence and the counter-story of shalom: peace as shared safety, dignity, and livelihood. From Rwanda’s neighbor-against-neighbor horror to Canada’s peacekeeping identity and the realities of moral injury, we keep circling one insistence: remember well so we can choose better. If you’re wrestling with poppies, budgets, diplomacy, and what to carry after the bugle fades, this conversation offers clarity, compassion, and a path forward.

If this moved you, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review telling us your key takeaway from Remembrance. Your voice helps more listeners find thoughtful, hopeful conversations like this one.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Framing War, Peace, And Remembrance
• 2:52 How We Marked The Day
• 9:35 Poppies, Symbols, And Who We Remember
• 16:43 Defense Budgets And Diplomacy
• 26:03 Racism, History, And Memory
• 34:18 Just War, Peace Theology, And Humanity
• 42:07 Artifacts, No Graves, And Personal Stories
• 51:02 Alliances, Power, And Nonviolent Resistance
• 1:01:40 Patriotism, Peacekeeping, And Identity
• 1:12:14 Ethical Remembrance And Not Performing
• 1:20:54 Break And Reset
• 1:25:29 Preaching Peace To People Trained For War
• 1:36:06 Why People Serve And A Chaplain’s Why
• 1:46:15 Empire, Calling, And Pastoral Care

Transcript

Bill: 0:07

Good evening friends. The microphones are on, and we are gathering once again for a conversation that asks us to pay attention to the world as it really is. Tonight we are stepping into the difficult terrain of war, peace, memory, and the responsibility we carry when we choose to remember well. Here at Prepare to Drown, the goal is simple. We talk honestly about faith and the world we live in. We explore the tensions that many of us carry, and we look for a God whose presence holds steady even when the world feels uncertain. So pull up a chair, whether you're joining us from down the street, or whether you are Ricardo's loyalty listener based in Japan, and let's take the plunge. I'm Bill Weaver, and this is Prepared to Drown. Good evening, everybody. The microphones are on, and most of us have put our poppies away for another year. And tonight we are stepping into a conversation that grows more complicated, it seems, every year. We are talking tonight about war and peace and remembrance day. And when I was a kid, it used to feel simple. A single moment that was meant to honor sacrifice and reflect on the cost of war. But the world that we are remembering in today is not as simple as it seemed when I was a kid. We're holding conflicts that have never found an end. We are looking at political polarization and everything being politicized in ways that fracture our communities. There's a rising tide of fear and nationalism that we are seeing growing in our world again. And there are deep generational divides over what remembrance should actually look like and what it should mean. And in the middle of all of that, many of us are still trying to remember well, honestly, humbly, and without glorifying violence in the process. So tonight we are going to try to ask and answer the question: how do we honor the weight of sacrifice without losing sight of peace in the process? And so to begin with, I'm going to introduce our panel tonight because I am not equipped to have this conversation alone. Directly to my right is Captain Justin McNeil. He is a Canadian Armed Forces chaplain who has offered spiritual care in some of the most complex places that our country sends people. Thank you for being here tonight, Justin.

Justin: 2:26

Yeah, you're so welcome.

Bill: 2:27

And I'm also going to introduce right next to him Dr. Trudy Govier, who is a philosopher and founding member of the Plowshare Society, whose work has shaped the national conversation about peace and trust and conflict. And we are so grateful to have you here tonight as well.

Trudy: 2:45

Thank you.

Bill: 2:46

Beside her are our regulars, we have Reverend Joanne Anquist and Ricardo Di Menezes, who are both here to lend their perspective and their constant uh engagement on these topics. Uh, we're grateful that both of you are here as well for this because it is a tricky and messy one. So this is gonna be the panel that is gonna try to walk us through this topic and see if we can do it without making anybody angry in the process.

Joanne: 3:12

And world peace will come by the end.

Bill: 3:14

World peace will be achieved by the time we are done. Yep. Uh so I'm gonna start with a really simple question, perhaps, or maybe it's a really complex one. Uh, and it's to the entire panel. Whoever wants to answer first is more than welcome to. How did you end up marking the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month this year?

Ricardo: 3:34

I was at home. And I had to work a little bit, so I watched it from Ottawa on TV, so I actually marked it at 9 in the morning. Because in Ottawa they did it at 11 o'clock their time, and it's somewhat of a a um I don't want to say tradition. It should be everybody's tradition to mark that time and date. But for me, it's it's it's interesting to see the evolution of remembrance when it comes to war because you have new veterans from new conflicts. Um, you have a marked um recognition of uh people of color who were affected by it, uh, indigenous soldiers. Uh and you know, there's now the the very forgotten, but still there, like November the 8th, where we remember Indigenous Veterans Day and stuff like that. So yeah, that's what I did. I just watched it on something something really good about watching it from the nation's capital with the unknown soldier and stuff that I really appreciate, right? Plus, it's a pain in the butt to get downtown for hours. It's like in sometimes you're like on the street standing and depending how busy it is. So yeah.

Trudy: 4:38

Well, I didn't really mark it at 1111, but I certainly watched the national news. And I'm always thinking about war and the risk of glorifying war on Remembrance Day, and uh the need to remember veterans who died, veterans who were injured, families of veterans, and the many, many civilian vet victims of war around the world. So I'm interested in the white poppy movement. The white poppy was uh started up in the 20s, I think, and was intended to be a broader remembrance of those who have suffered as a result of war. Um, anyway, it's quite a controversial thing, and some people are afraid to wear it, and other people would like to wear that on the red one as well. I think it's an interesting issue how you remember vets and you admire their courage and you feel for their sacrifice, but you don't want to glorify war. I think it's quite kind of a balancing act there.

Bill: 5:43

So I'm I'm aware that for some folks they may not know about the white poppy movement. Do you want to explain a bit more about it for folks?

Trudy: 5:49

Well, uh yeah, I'm a bit dated on this. It was a couple of years ago I researched it, but the white poppy is a peace poppy. It was a movement started up, I think, in the 20s in England by people who wanted to remember not only vets who were killed and injured, but also all the those who had suffered as a result of war, civilians and families of vets, families of injured people. And they uh founded this white poppy, and there there are they are sold in Canada. There's an outfit in Vancouver that sells them. Um anyway, the um I think as the 30s went on, they became more controversial. But um it's an interesting thing. And when I was looking into this, I found uh there were other poppies. There's a there's a special poppy that uh has indigenous beadwork. There's a cocky poppy that is uh celebrates Indian participation. There's even a particular poppy that commemorates animal that contributed to war. So anyway, it's a big theme. You can get into it, but I don't want to take over the evening on this subtopic.

Joanne: 7:07

Um well we always observe uh Remembrance Day on Remembrance Sunday, which is the day before. So um every year, uh sort of the week before Remembrance Day is is for me a time of thinking, you know, what's the message? Like what do we really want to say, and how do we uh craft our services in ways that sort of speak to both those things. We always have a theme of peace, but also of honoring those who have served. And so that's sort of my remembrance day. And on you know, the 11th, maybe see clips and stuff, but don't do anything um specifically at that time.

Justin: 7:46

Yeah, for me, this was a really interesting uh year in that most the last number of years I've been leading services, uh remembering services, particularly uh in Edmonton, where I was the last number of years, uh down at the Ainsworth Dyer uh Memorial Bridge service. Um that was the one that I had done at for a number of years. But this year uh I was on leave um here in here in Calgary. So my family and I and good friends of ours went down to the the Calgary Military Museum um and was was participating in that service and really, really great. And we were talking uh earlier about the the flyover um at the military museum was done by the the C17 uh instead of the fighters this year, uh which is actually the repatriation plane that we use uh in the CAF uh when we have deaths overseas. So for me it was a very interesting, um an interesting experience. Yeah. But it was good to be a part of here in Calgary.

Bill: 8:38

Yeah. So we were talking uh before the podcast started, uh, because uh Justin and I actually both ended up at the same Remembrance Day uh event uh down at the military museums because uh all three of my children are in uh different branches of cadets, and Remembrance Day is uh a non-optional uh day to show up if you're a cadet. So my Army cadet, my oldest daughter is an Army cadet, and uh she was uh down at the military museum as one of the cadets that was uh supporting the VIPs and wreath layers and and uh and marking sort of their uh satellite unknown soldier monument that they have there. And uh and again that C-17, totally different mood that was set to uh the the you know the past years where you get the loud fighter jets that kind of blaze by. This was uh this was uh a monstrously large plane um that is largely used either for transport or as as as Justin had said for for repatriating um de deaths overseas, the bodies of of soldiers uh killed overseas, and uh the mood you could feel um as a result uh of a sort of a totally different, it wasn't uh it wasn't the same kind of rah-rah. Um there was much more of kind of a somber, um reflective feeling to it, uh and just a uh juggernaut of uh of a plane. Um so um as you were as you were doing um whether it be the the week of or um catching the news um or being at the military museum um or or watching it two hours earlier from the nation capitol, um what uh what does your participation, however it is that you market, uh stir in you uh when you think about uh Remembrance Day as an event and and sort of the the act of remembrance in our our country? What does it what does it elicit from you in in response, your participation?

Trudy: 10:35

Well, it elicits anxiety about an exceedingly large defense budget, which may be spent in counterproductive ways and is calculated to over the next five years amount to $81.8 billion. I'm not um against individual people who serve in the military. I'm not against having a military, but I'm very worried that um pouring a lot into this at an at a really amazing pace, possibly out of deference to a highly unreliable American president, I'm very worried about doing this at this particular time. So when I hear the word defense, um these fears come to my mind.

Ricardo: 11:25

Unreliable is a new word I haven't used yet for him. Right? It's a bunch of words I've used for him, but unreliable. Yes, absolutely. Yes. It's uh So for Remembrance Day for me, I often think about um and I have since I was small, because I was always told that, you know, like we are where we are today because that war was won. And you know, the ability for my parents to come to Canada as immigrants is part and parcel because of the fact that we won and we have the freedoms we have. And I always think to myself in the back of my head, what would happen if we didn't? What would the world look like, right?

Joanne: 12:00

Man in the high tower.

Ricardo: 12:02

Right, right, right, exactly.

Joanne: 12:04

Which is a show on uh Prime or something. Yeah, yeah.

Ricardo: 12:08

Yeah, it imagines it where you know Germany takes half of America and Japan's. Japan the other half. Japan's the other half. Uh shout out to our Japanese uh listener because well, World War II is a different perspective for him, right? The Japan was the aggressor, right? And so uh interestingly enough, and they so anyway, shout out. I'll come visit you one day. But anyway, uh what happened if we would we we live in a world right now, so sorry, let me back up. The World War II was very rooted in racism. Very rooted in racism, the extermination of the attempted extermination of the Jewish community, you know, the starvation of the Eastern Europeans, the Hitler did, uh, even whatever Stalin did to the Ukrainians and and and and as a result of that. So I think of the world we live in now, where we live in a society and an unreliable president in the South who's also very rooted in racism. And you know, the the the thing that I always hear in my head is that history repeats itself, and I'm wondering what's happening right now in 2025 and where are we marching towards with exploding budgets and military budgets? Like he's demanding the 5% of GDP for all NATO countries to put into the military, and for what? Like what are we planning? What's going on? So that's this year in particular was a year of uncertainty for me looking at Remembrance Day and wondering what's coming down the pipes because we live in a world now where even the American president is using the army against his own people, right? Um and and and to what end, right? So that's what that's what this year was for me, right?

Joanne: 13:41

It's interesting you talk about that rooted in racism. I saw this um video that was made by the American military for those who were serving in England in the Second World War. And the whole thing, uh, there's a famous actor who was uh in it, but the whole thing was explaining to their soldiers how in England they don't mind missing missing um mixing races, and that you know, they had um an African American, a black man talking to a clerk who invited him to come and sit down. Now I know that would never happen at home, but over here it's okay. And it just blew me away, you know, like because you always hear about these um soldiers who served uh African American soldiers who served overseas and came home and still didn't have the rights they were apparently fighting for over there. So it is it's very interesting.

Justin: 14:33

And we have lots of those stories in Canada too with our indigenous brothers and sisters. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, Tommy Prince, prime example from the PPCLI. Yeah. Um, right, and like all of these, these and and I'll use the word hero to to exemplify what they were capable of, what they were um able to do and accomplish and contribute, uh, to come home to a world that didn't then appreciate all of those things.

Ricardo: 14:59

I read somewhere that the indigenous soldiers like ate better at war in Europe than they did when they came home and went back to reserve. Right? Yeah.

Joanne: 15:08

So I think um like for for me, when I uh what Remembrance Day does is um like over time, how my perspective has changed. Because you know, when you're young, and I think it is also when you're closer to uh a war, you remember it differently. A culture does. I I remember reading a paper where they say the further you get from a war, the more likely you are to engage in it because the population hasn't experienced it, they don't remember it, and you know, what your um interactions be that are current guide you more than the horror that you didn't experience. Um and and I'm always reminded that it's the winners who write the history as well, you know, and so the the stories become more nuanced. I I'm not a person who doesn't think there can be a just war, right? It it it's possible. I think as a Christian minister, though, our first default is always to peace and to diplomacy and to try and find ways that humanity can live together in peace. That's what we're that's what we're about. That's the hope that we keep. Um this this year I really reflected because scriptures that Bill had chosen that I like was like, well, I don't know what I'm doing with these, but one of this is no greater love than this that you lay down your life for your friend. Right? And it's like I that whole and in in um the military, it's it's very clear that soldiers fight for each other, the brothers in arms. Um they fight for each other more than the ideals. And this laying down your life, giving your life for a friend seems very um powerful, particularly under stress. But what I like to think this year is that um you could also lay down your life for your friend by protesting, for instance, uh by um insisting that war is not the answer, by working towards social justice in different ways. And the importance of seeing the totality of the story instead of just the heroics becomes more and more important every year, you know? Um at the same time, never to forget, you know, a whole generation was scarred by the the second world war, right? They came home and didn't talk about it and lived with that. And that is a tragedy as well, because they served uh because we sent them, the government sent them, and to sort of just say, okay, now you're home and go on with it. Afghanistan too, you know, the post-traumatic stress, particularly because there's more injury, right? Because we can fix more things. So there's these scars that go on much longer than they would have in in uh previous wars where they would have died. Um so the whole story, the horror, as well as the the uh the sort of i idealistic uh view of uh war is really important to me the older I get and the more I delve into these um you know remembrance day services every every year to try and figure that out.

Justin: 18:32

Yeah, and I love that you brought up like the humanity of it. Um because for me, like that's that's the crux of of Remembrance Day uh for me. In the military, we do a really good job of unifying, right? We all wear the same uniform, we march the same, we do the same, we think the same to a certain extent. Um but we we we train ourselves uh into uh components uh for necessity. Um but Remembrance Day is the rehumanization of that. Um that yes, we all wear the same uniform or the same color or or or whatever that is, but we stand on the shoulders of history. But that history had names, had faces, had more than rank and service number, they had families, um, they bear scars, some seen and some unseen. Um so Remembrance Day is the is the rehumanization uh of the institution that exists out of necessity because of instability. Um and for me, the remembrance of those things uh is an essential component of our corporate memory. Um one of the things they did at the um the military museum was uh highlight a couple of artifacts um that they hold either in the museum uh locally or nationally, one of which was a travel trunk um by a flight uh flight sergeant um with names of places and people, right? The things visited and done um that's now without its owner um who was lost. Um and the second one was a teddy bear uh held onto by a soldier whose daughter gave it to him, who carried it through every battle until it was brought home. Yeah, he was actually right without him.

Bill: 20:34

He was in the forward uh in in the first world war. It was the first world war, in fact. Um and it was it was in the pocket of uh a guy who was setting up the forward medical um base for um was it Passchandel? It might have been Passchendel. I can't remember for sure, but uh um and ended up being shelled. Uh the the camp, the medical camp ended up being shelled and he died with the stuffed animal still in his pocket and it was brought home. Uh interestingly enough, both of those artifacts, for me, the thing that made it almost a more powerful storytelling is that they were both linked to people who had no grave. Um these were these were people whose names were marked on monuments um overseas, but whose physical remains um had never actually been retrieved and had never actually been um you know committed to the ground in some place that had a marker or a place where they're um so uh I mean there is there is something fascinating about military history and the ability to um put faces to um to people who would otherwise be nameless, right? Um and and the risk of um of of sort of forgetting um forgetting the humanity that that these were these were children of parents, these were spouses of of of partners, these were parents of of children, um and uh and and like don't even have a place that you can go and say like that's where they buried them, right? Um and all of these stories are are encapsulated in these artifacts that you know carry carry all this history in the absence of of you know that ability to do that. So like and that's something that's something that military historians do very well. I appreciated there was a comment at the ceremony of, I think, from the MC saying that uh um because she the the MC was the curator of the the museum uh this year. Um and and she said like the the great thing about uh the great the great is the wrong word. Great wasn't the word she used, but the the good thing about wars is that they leave a lot of artifacts for us to find the story about, right? Um and and it wasn't said as a celebratory thing, it was said as a much more of a kind of a tragic um tongue-in-cheek, right? There's never uh there's never a lack of um remnants after a story is done to tell the stories that you don't get to actually hear, right? So um it was it was definitely it was definitely a powerful um presentation that was done this year. Um I'm I'm curious, Ricardo, um has your perspective changed over time?

Ricardo: 23:13

Um I think so. Ma'am. I find there's less um and less I don't know if patriotism is the word. Um like when I was young and growing up um and Remembrance Day came about, there was all this I don't want to say pomp and circumstance, but all this remembrance and all these activities you would do and stuff. And I find nowadays people are less and less interested in like this whole point of this podcast is remembering war and violence, right? But I think there needs to be more of an emphasis, like you said, on the humanity of of what we're remembering, right? And the effects and the ripple effects of that. And I think that comes from um the the notion that, well, why are we even going to war in the first place? Well, sorry, first of all, it's done. You can't you can't change that now, right? Perhaps we can avoid future wars in in and we haven't done a good job with that either. Um but I just find a lot of the new generation don't pay as much attention to what we've gone through. Um and for me, that that perspective for me is is uh disheartening because it means you forget and it's it's actively being forgotten things like the Holocaust and you forget things like well, not just forgotten, denied. Yeah, exactly. Right? It's acceptable to deny these things, right? Or the genocides that took place in in that's taking place right now in Darfur and the genocide that took place in in Sudan, and in Ghana and and um uh and Rwanda, sorry, and so like uh the wars that took place and the reasons why we went to those wars, like because anyone could easily say that's their conflict, why are we involved? But we're fighting for a greater good. So when you went to war in Korea, okay, and Canadians were there in Korea fighting side by side to help save the Korean people. Imagine if we didn't, and imagine if that armistice was never signed and that that that demilitarized zone was like created. Look at what North Korea is now, right? Um, that's what we're trying to protect from, and people don't see the ripple effect of that, and that's why my perspective has changed. And I I look at people and I I don't challenge them to join the army because Lord knows I couldn't do that, but um just read about what we do and why we do it that way, and why sometimes diplomacy only goes so far. You have to you have to be able to show some some some courage and some might in order to to persuade people that you have their backs, right? And that's basically what it is, right? Uh I think we live in a world now too where um my perspective has changed in the sense that politics is playing a greater role in um our involvement in helping people. For example, like what's happening right now in Ukraine, right? I was listening to the news this morning and how Russia has now pommeled and bombarded a bunch of apartment buildings, right, in in Kiev. And where the the the entire time this entire war has been energy infrastructure and and and taking land piece by piece, but now they're actually pummeling and hitting civilians, and the world just stands by and looks and watches, right?

Trudy: 26:14

Um, well, I think it's obviously really necessary to respond to these absolutely severe situations. But I'd like to go back to Joanne's emphasis on diplomacy, because I think that's uh that's very important, and that should really really be pursued as far as it can go with resources and with a lot of sensitivity. And one of the concerns that many people have about militarization and emphasis on the 2% and then the 5% and so on, and emphasis on equipment and expenses like that is that you know it may deplete resources that go into diplomacy and deplete the quest for alternatives to war. I think I always like to distinguish between the conflict and violence. A conflict happens when you have several parties that have goals that are incompatible or they believe their goals are incompatible. The conflict isn't violence. I mean, conflicts, there's lots of response to conflict, and violence is only one. And of those, war is only one. And yes, we have these wars, and we prepare for wars and we remember people who died in wars, but we I don't think we should ever think that war is inevitable. And I really value your emphasis on the diplomatic side. And I think that we should be sure that we have enough resources going to that. And what I hear, and this is secondhand, uh, I hear that foreign affairs and global affairs is down while defense procurement is up. And that that's something that worries me. And I think we should be attentive to that, because I don't think we should re you know, re we should ignore those resources. I mean, when you talk about humanization, another aspect of humanization is the human beings who are negotiating and trying to resolve and understand and respond to the conflicts that exist and trying to respond to those short of violent means. And I I think we should be trying to do that as often as we possibly can.

Justin: 28:34

For sure. But I think the the other side of that is is that there in order to find the diplomatic solutions, there has to be a willingness on both sides. Um and so long as there is a willingness on both sides, I think that has to be our our primary avenue. However, preparedness can never stand its ground if it's not done as well. Um so I think we need to look for those and also uh opportunities as well. I understand the concerns for increased defense spending, um, but from the defense side of it, um, we are looking at aging infrastructure, um, we are looking at uh replacement requirements, we are looking at uh evolving battle space requirements, uh the changing landscape of conflict, um, both violent and nonviolent.

Trudy: 29:31

Well, I certainly won't argue against all those things, and I can't, I'm in no position to comment on the condition of repair of various entities in the Canada's military arsenal. I mean, that's way outside my level of expertise. I just think that um you just have to watch these things like 2 percent and 5 percent and look at how are those set. Is that is that something that has been a reasonable Evidential calculation that's been budgeted for, or is there a temperamental person who got mad and declared that that was a good number? And I think we need to know that.

Joanne: 30:12

Well, and I think also, though, talking about that temperamental person whose name should not be spoken.

Bill: 30:19

He was unreliable. We spend a lot of time making this guy Voldemort.

Joanne: 30:24

No, but but I think that the response is actually because Canada's military policy, I mean, do I know this? This is what's in the air, has always been the Americans will protect us. Yeah. Right? And we can't believe that anymore, that the Americans will protect us. And and it has made us uh believe or that as a country, I think many Canadians um think that yes, we should have uh an armed forces that is prepared and capable, and we should never again rely on the neighbors to the south to be our saviors if something should happen. I mean, God forbid that they should be the ones that we need to be safe from.

Trudy: 31:06

So I think that's that's completely correct. But I think um, and I'm just gonna put in a little plug for our group here. Um if we try to defend ourselves against whoever and we try to do it without the U.S., we've got big problems. One is that we're extremely integrated with them the way things are. And the other is if our threat were to come from them, it looks really overwhelming. So should I just say, the Ploughsher's Calgary Society, we are going to have some talks on this this winter, uh, looking at things like the Golden Dome, the F-35, the uh the proposed um budget, and the situation of the Arctic, because I think it's a it's a real question what Canada could do. And I think you're right, we haven't faced that question. Right. And we're trying to face it, and it's really intimidating.

Bill: 32:04

But do you not think that there is at least some requirement or need for us to be able to answer that question before we can really assess just how effective we're gonna be at diplomacy? I mean, there's a there's a I think there's a challenging moment, and and it's it's horribly unethical to do this, and I'm gonna do it anyway, of like scaling it all down to a schoolyard, right? The world is a schoolyard. Um and there there are people that I am more likely to be diplomatic with, and they're the people who can kick my butt. Um, in all honesty. Like when they come to the table and say, hey, we need to figure this out without violence, it's the people that I know can hold their own that I'm actually gonna be more inclined to speak with, I think, right? So when you have somebody like Trump, because I'm not afraid of his name, um, who who quite frankly has said, you know, it is probably easier for us just to annex this country um and be done with. Um I'm I'm I question how without some kind of um ability to stand up and be counted, um any kind of diplomacy works with like there there has to be some kind of a uh uh uh an ability to stand up and to to make him question or make him um at least have to wonder about um the consequences of going down that kind of a road, right?

Trudy: 33:26

And again, well, I agree that there does have to be some capacity to stand up, but what is that capacity? If that capacity is going to be considered to be entirely military and they're ten times our size with these absolutely vast, incredible resources, I don't think that capacity is going to be terribly plausible. Now, there are people researching, I haven't done this yet myself, but there are people researching in this context, nonviolent resistance. So when these people, if if these people were to try to come in, you cut off the power and do all these various things, have sit-down strikes, don't run the transit, et cetera. I don't know. That's an approach that people are looking at. Another thing, of course, that you can have is you can have resources that you don't wish to turn over. So I think there are there's economic power, there's military power, there's nonviolent people power. But I mean, I would love to believe that the Canadian military could defeat the US military but or the Russian military, but I am sorry to tell you that I do not believe that.

Joanne: 34:38

But even in the schoolyard, right, the only way you defeat the bully is by being together, right? It's the alliances that you form with other kids that say, no, together we can defeat this. And I think that that's also, I mean, God forbid we should ever get back to the Axis and the allies, you know, where those alliances actually cause war. Even the NATO, you know, chapter five or whatever it is that says if someone attacks it, we all have to go together, that accelerates uh the possibility of more conflict. But still the idea, and I think this is what's happening in Canada, and God knows. I'm as again, I'm not an expert. But this idea that who are our friends truly, and who can we rely on if there is an aggressor that used to be our friend? And you know, I my son always reminds me someday Trump's gonna be gone. He will, oh, I spoke the name. Someday he will be gone. It could be worse who's in his place. Absolutely.

Bill: 35:37

Right now he's normalizing this kind of mindset and thinking and behavior in a way that that does actually exacerbate the possibility that whoever follows could be worse. But at the same time, um, and I am not the voice of hope normally on these things. Um but uh at the same time, we also see a rise in the um the discontent with his methods, his language, his rhetoric. Um so so I think what we find actually is is the the fractures of our society on full display at their at their deepest and their broadest and their their most jagged. Um and I think the question for everybody, north of the border, south of the border, around the world right now, really is when all the cards are played, where are we actually gonna land? Is it gonna be in a peaceful, coexisting, working for the mutual good of all kind of approach to things? Or are we looking at having to draw some serious lines and seek strategic partnerships and allies and whatever the case may be? And in the middle of it all, um, how do we um how do we remember the cost of one of these trajectories in a way that doesn't glorify that outcome but also doesn't allow us to get two, three, four generations away, as you said, right? With no concept or recollection of the consequences of going down this road. Right.

Ricardo: 37:00

It's interesting. You you talk about preparedness, and it it's it's in my mind, uh, preparedness is important, but it's also like when you talk about like diplomacy, and and the word I would use is leverage in many ways. Like I said North Korea earlier, but you think about it now, they are the GDP of like the same amount of dog food that's sold in the US on an early basis. Like, there's people are in abject poverty and starvation in that country, and so there's really no reason to turn our attention to North Korea at all. The South is perfectly fine in terms of their military might and whatever they can. And so, if Kim Jong-un calls up Donald Trump and says, I want to invade, and they didn't have nuclear warheads, I think Donald Trump would just hang up the phone or give or pass it down or because a country has leverage, and I mean this is the same for contract negotiations in the union, I guess. Um that country has leverage that that that that plays a very important role in the type of diplomacy that we have, and that's that's the scale-up that concerns me the most, right? Is that the kind of leverage we have as opposed to the leverage of a bunch of countries saying just calm it down a bit, right? Uh, and so the the the biggest problem we have right now is the craziest man driving the Titanic straight into the iceberg is in charge of the most powerful military by leaps and bounds uh in the world, um second most to another crazy person in China. So, like, where where does the the you you I don't know how to really say it, but I mean like you can keep adding more um military might everywhere, but you have to start injecting money into other places as well. But when you have these small countries that are very clearly trying to exercise, like Iran's another example, like they don't have a nuclear warhead, but everybody knows that everything they're doing possible to get one. All they want is one. And for in many ways, the the sanctions and and the uh and the embargoes against Iran would cripple their economy ever since the Ayatollah took over. But they're trying to get one nuclear warhead, and that feared the most powerful country in the world so much that he bombed those those those uh uh uranium enrichment sites, right? So what was the diplomacy? And so this is what what when you're talking about, I think the persuasion and and the preparedness, like people are just it's a proactive approach to to they say it's avoiding war, but I think it's it's raising a more diplomatic conflict as well, right?

Joanne: 39:21

I I I mean in some ways it's the narrative that we've told our culture, right? Yeah, you know, um, and we so often default to this idea of military protection is how we are protected. And I think like you you you said something, you know, a while ago, you said something about we're less patriotic because we don't remember the military. Why is our patriotism have to be connected to military stuff? Do you know what I mean? Maybe we're more patriotic because we believe our patriotism used to be connected to peacekeepers.

Bill: 39:53

Absolutely. You remember? And honestly, like our the elbows up movement that kind of happened in response to Trump's, you know, saying we're gonna be the 51st state, um, didn't highlight military anything, right? But you wanted to start to see proud Canadians standing up and being proud Canadians. Um, like they they even reworked the Molson Canadian ad from back in the day and like updated it for today, right? Like we be we suddenly became experts on Canadian identity as an entire population, right? Right overnight. We suddenly um reconnected with everything that made our country unique and um and worth protecting, um, not just like through military might, but um and and an in like even across political divides, um you could you could hear the very grudging kind of I can't really argue with them on this one because I'm in agreement that Canada's great, right? So um nobody could just flat out say, hey, maybe it's time to start closing some of these these rifts, but except the Alberta separatists. Well, fair enough.

Joanne: 40:55

Okay.

Bill: 40:55

Um but we don't really I mean there's your Voldemort. Yeah. Um so her name's Danielle. So I'm curious. I'm curious in all of this, and and I'm I'm actually gonna put it to you, Trudy, because um I I want to kind of get back to this idea of like just earlier this week, we all gathered at various sites or or uh in front of our TVs or watched the news or whatever the case may be. But we we we marked it another remembrance day. Um and we know that there are fewer and fewer veterans from those those those world wars uh that are that are showing up. We've talked about kind of the distance that that happens as we get further and further away from conflict, those narratives start to to dwindle, those people start to dwindle. I was I was even very aware um that the veterans and VIPs at the military museums this year was substantially less than even just last year, right? Um and that this becomes more and more um the case every every consecutive year, right? Um and we do have veterans of of more recent wars, um, and even some of the work of trying to reframe the narrative of Remembrance Day in some ways, um, or the branding, if you will, of Remembrance Day. Because when I was a kid, it was about First and Second World War, but that was before Afghanistan, before um a lot of these other these other global conflicts that emerged since because we had kind of told ourselves, hey, we're we're done with the whole global conflict thing. We've we've learned our lesson, and here we are now, honestly, 30 years later, I'm getting older, um, realizing that maybe, hey, we haven't learned as much as we thought, or we haven't been able to put it into action. So, how in all of that, my question to you, Trudy, how do we remember in a way that remains ethical and remains committed to peace um without being performative or diluting the reality of what we what we're remembering? Um how do we how do we do that well?

Trudy: 42:56

Well, I think we um should uh note suffering and note loss and note damage, including environmental damage, and note that these were very hard times for people to go through, and some of them didn't go through them because they died, and we should vow not to do this again. We should we should vow to work for more constructive responses to conflict whenever we can. And we should we should resolve to keep up the resources to do that. So, yes, we should study military history, but we should study also other history. We should we should study ethics, we should study theology, we should study environment and and so on, and we should learn that um our world is precious and we should hang on to it.

Justin: 43:50

So I'm gonna challenge you just a little bit on that, because the underlying my concern uh is that the underlying assumption to the footing on which you're making comments is a misrepresentation of those that are committed to peace. Because you will never see an individual so committed to peace than someone with live ammunition wondering if the other side doesn't have that too. Those folks that I have trained side by side, willing to, like you said, lay down their lives for the man next to them, the woman next to them, the m the the the person in the same color, the skin no longer matters, gender no longer matters, the mud on your boots and the blood in your veins matters. Those folks will never be so committed to peace than they are wondering if eight minutes from now, in Latvia, it takes eight minutes from Russia to get a rocket there. Those folks are committed to peace.

Trudy: 45:09

Okay, well, I'll just accept that I haven't been part of the military personally, and I don't have family members who have been. I'll just accept that they're committed to peace. Um because I can't really, I won't dispute you on that point. I won't dispute your experience. I guess my um my comment would be um there are different ways of going about trying to get peace. And I think people who do it through trade, through educational relationships, through diplomacy and so on are also committed to peace. People who work for nuclear nuclear disarmament are not in the military, and they may question certain military doctrines. They work for peace. They work against nuclear war, and they think the way to avoid it is to not have nuclear weapons anymore, and they firmly believe in peace. And I mean, if I'll accept your claim that mil some military people are committed to peace, I think there's a particular view about how to get peace. I don't think it's necessarily that people disagree about the goal, but they get disagree about how to reach that goal.

Justin: 46:21

Absolutely. And what I think is that each of these components is an essential piece to the overall puzzle. The fear I have is vilifying one of those pieces that may or may not be essential in the overall puzzle, that is us as humanity trying desperately to patchwork piece together.

Trudy: 46:45

Well, I don't know what all the pieces are, so I can't say that I believe every piece is essential, I because I don't know enough to say that. Um, but I certainly think if you're working one way, you shouldn't um malign the people who are working a different way.

Justin: 47:03

Absolutely. Agree completely.

Joanne: 47:05

I think the other thing to remember in all of this is that, you know, I can see just in what you're saying. Like when you're uh, you know, within striking distance of someone who is your apparent enemy, uh that heightens your um awareness and your hope that I'm not gonna be in the direct line of fire. Absolutely, right? And seeking peace. The idea of do we um have armed conflict or not is not up to you as a soldier. It's up to powers who are not in that position. Absolutely. And and so, you know, taking the theological perspective in the time of Jesus and Rome, you know, they had the Pax Romana. I'm sure I've said this almost every podcast, but the idea that peace would come through victory, right? If we defeat everybody in the known world and have a Roman Empire, then we can finally have peace. And, you know, Cross and talks about how there's another way to have peace, and it's peace through justice, right? So if there is enough for everyone and there's shared resources and people don't feel threatened, um there's a a better chance that they will live together in peace. But you still have crazy people, right? You still have crazy people who are just gonna say, you know, they're megalomaniacs or whatever. That's gonna happen. But the narratives, like for instance, even Iran, I don't like uh, you know, uh what I remember I I taught a woman in in the early 90s who was a refugee from Iran, and she remembers when the Ayatollah first came in. She didn't own a hijab. She was Muslim, she didn't, and when women had to wear a hijab, she had to go buy one or to her mother's house to find it. And she said, and at first you could wear like black and brown and beige, and then they found that beige was too provocative. And I'm like, beige is never provocative on me. But anyway, so there are horrible things about the Iranian regime as there are horrible things about the American regime. But the narratives that we hear and and Canada too, you were talking about indigenous soldiers, right? All no country is perfect, but the narrative that comes that we are sold by the empire, today's empire, really determines who we trust and who we don't trust, and whether we are more likely to engage in armed conflict or not engage in armed conflict. So I think that as people who are thoughtful, I totally agree there needs to be a military, and I'm so respectful of the people who serve. And um, you know, like it's not a job that I think that I could do, but those who do, it is um something that we must always be so grateful for. But we can't, we have to divorce their dedication to each other and their task and to peace in their way from the narratives of the governments and the powers, the principalities and the powers, Paul would say, Yeah, the Apostle Paul, who are creating the environment in which those soldiers are deployed or not.

Bill: 50:22

Yeah.

Joanne: 50:22

Right?

Bill: 50:22

You're hope you are hoping that the people who actually decide whether or not soldiers are going to need to go to war are not treating that as a playing piece on a game board.

Joanne: 50:34

Exactly right.

Bill: 50:34

Um, yeah, that the lead the leaders, and again, I'm not even talking military leadership, we're talking about governments. We're talking about like people in positions of power over nations and their policy and especially their international policy, are not um being flippant with people's lives in the process.

Ricardo: 50:52

So I think that's part of the reason why I said, sorry, like you know, we're forgetting where what happened in the past because um, you know, why people went to war and why war was there in the first place. Because right now we're in a we're in a world where the only way some people and the way the media portrays a lot of peace efforts is by having bigger and better bombs and bigger and better weapons, bigger and more sophisticated weapons. Like this is the first listening to the news reports on the um uh the the war in Ukraine, the the the the human casualties a lot because there's drones, like drone after drone. Like, I can't afford one drone from Costco, and they're sending 150 at a time into each other's banks to do it, right? And so when I say we're forgetting things, like there's there's the organization in Japan called um Nihonidenko, and they're the nuclear disarmament organization that was they won the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts for nuclear disarmament. Their average age now is 85 in six months, yeah, right? Yeah, and they're not getting young people into the ranks doing nuclear disarmament work. Um but at the same time in the world right now, we have more nuclear bombs than ever. And the nuclear bombs we have now make Hiroshima look like a a rock in the lake, you know, that so that's what I'm saying. It's like we're we're we're marching towards um having a bigger, more destructive war rather than finding ways to say, let's let's stop funding the arms and weapons manufacturers for a little bit and figure out a way to like deal with these these these threats that are that are taking place right now. And you know, part of that is not having crazy people at the helm. You're absolutely right. Like, you know, he who shall not the unreliable one. I'm like that. I'm gonna get the unreliable one, or like um even even the people in the Middle East, um those that that's the that what that's what really has to be. Uh people have to exercise the democracy in in uh in the tone of peace. Like who's the most peaceful person we could elect into power?

Justin: 52:57

And yeah, so and I and I won't argue with the like the possibility of that scale, right? Um but cycling back to like the cost, um, and I and I can't speak institutionally or universally for leadership, but in my experience as a chaplain, um, I have never worked with a leader. Um, that be it from the smallest uh scale to the largest uh scale that I've worked with in those in leadership. I have never experienced a leader to take the cost of life lightly, um either in an exercise context, either in an orders context, um, whether it's um you know a training event um where things have maybe gone well or not well. Um and those folks, those those in leadership positions, uh tend to be the ones that have to balance those probabilities, those possibilities. Um and I've never experienced one who has taken those things lightly. Sure. And we should probably neither have had to come back and have conversation uh about the decisions that have either gone well or not well with someone like a spiritual care provider, like the chaplain, uh, or social um social workers and those like this. The the mental load of those things, um, yeah, it's it's huge. Um whether they're working for a nuclear armament, um, I have no doubt, like all of those pieces have mental loads. Uh, and my experience with those in in leadership positions certainly have experienced um that mental load as well.

Bill: 54:40

Aaron Powell But we can also probably name that that's one of the perks of being Canadian, um, right? At the at least at this time, is that we we don't have a Trump running um our government and making our military decisions, right? So but we have certainly seen a rise of the rhetoric um in our country because it is being um much more normalized now. And we see it not just not just in North America either. We've we've seen it in Europe, we've seen it in places that there are suddenly like who would have thought there would come a day that there would again be a Nazi party, um, right? And and so again, all of this all of this is to say that I like I think part of what makes Remembrance Day so complex right now is that um what we believed we understood about the world um is starting to prove to be false, right? That the that the I won't even say peace, but maybe the balance that we thought maybe we had achieved or the um the sense we had that diplomacy was the the surefire way forward, uh we are now questioning um at least whether or not um we're as certain about those truths as we used to be. Um and and that is why I believe um we see more people every year coming out to Remembrance Day services right now in the last few years. They they have seen the marked increase of people that are showing up. Um not with you know renewed patriotism or or any of that kind of stuff in the way that you were describing, Ricardo, but I think from a place of uh this might matter more than I used to think 10 years ago, because things seem so much more um uncertain, unstable, chaotic. Um and and I think we know that there are there are trajectories that we can go from here into the future, and not all of them have um the outcomes we would hope for, right? Um and I'm gonna say on that note that maybe we take our break because this feels like as good a place as any to stop. And when we return, we're gonna continue the conversation, but uh we are gonna take a brief intermission and we will return in a moment. All right, Justin, we are back, and I'm gonna throw the second half to you to start with because uh we certainly talked a lot about um uh some some uncertainty and some questions around uh trajectories that we might experience in the world uh in the coming years and our hopes for peace and ways of achieving peace. You have the privilege and the um uh the great challenge of serving a population of people who are trained for war, um, who are uh as you say really invested in peace. And so uh I want to ask you how is it that you as a chaplain preach peace to people who are trained for war?

Justin: 57:49

Yeah, great question. Um So it is certainly a challenge. Um The Military and Armed Service, particularly Combat Arms, uh, is one of the few jobs in the world, I would say, where you train for a task you hope you never have to do for real. Um everybody else goes through training to do a thing and then they do the thing. Um but for a lot of folks, particularly combat arms, particularly army, for me, uh serving with uh the 3rd Battalion, BBC L I, um they train as the pointy end of the spear. Um and for most of them, they are prepared uh for that task, uh mentally, physically, uh spiritually for the most part, um, but certainly with a capacity um to do great and horrible things um that they honestly hope they will never have to actually do. Um so for me it's about holding intention, um, folks that are that are trained in the art of violence, um, and yet enabling their humanity to go home and read stories to their kids at night, um, to to coach Little League, uh, to go to PTA meetings, to to attend churches, um and enabling them to remember who they are uh in the midst of all that they are capable of. Um and sometimes that means holding those things in intention, uh sometimes that means bringing those things together. Um I mean there's this is the great adage that uh uh you can endure a lot if you know why. Um and for a lot of the folks that I have served alongside of, um the Why is an essential component of the what of the what they do. And as the chaplain, it's partly my role, as we were talking about before, to remind folks of how strange their profession is in the wider world, how essential it uh is to be prepared for it, even though we hope we never have to uh to be in the midst of it. Um and still as as as Christians remember who they are and whose they are. Um and the folks that are uh able to bring those identities together, um, I find actually make very uh good and great uh people. I have worked with some amazing, amazing people. Um I think it was I think you've quoted Jordan Peterson before on the podcast. Um and Peterson talks about what it is to be a to be a good man or a good person. He would probably say man, and I'm not I'm not saying that I'm a huge everything Jordan Peterson, but um, but it is the capacity for something and the ability to control that. Um and for me, my role is about supporting folks uh not only in the everyday, but in the midst of of all that those eventualities make sure they're still whole and human uh on the other side of it. Um and that's what I try to do. So I don't know if that answers your question or not, but yeah.

Joanne: 1:01:41

I I'm just really curious because I was listening to you and all the people that you work with, and you know, we have uh a professional army, is you know what they call it, very trained to do high technology things. Um but it is uh a volunteer army, like you you enlist, and it's just really curious me because you were sitting there talking, I'm like, like, what is the why? Like, is it because there is an opportunity in private sector? Do they believe in the ideals of of the military? Like when you run across people who have enlisted and made a choice, and more and more, it's actually not I did four years and I'm done. It's like your life career is in the military. Why? You know, like I'm just curious about that.

Bill: 1:02:25

Can I reframe the question? Because that might be an unfair question. Um no no just because I don't I I wouldn't want to, but but here, let me let me can I reframe the question maybe and see if whatever you want.

Joanne: 1:02:34

You're the MC.

Bill: 1:02:35

So um well, so I'm I'm gonna overshare and I'm gonna apologize in advance. But uh you and I went to seminary together. We all all three of us actually went to seminary together. And uh the very first night that I arrived in my first year, you and your wife were in your apartment, and I came over, and we may have drunk a little bit. Um, and we were sitting in your living room, and you said, uh, you know, one day I am gonna be a military chaplain, right? And you knew even then that this was where you're gonna end up. And you didn't go straight there, right? Like you you went through congregational ministry and and a whole bunch of other things in the process, right? But but you knew then that this was your calling on your life, right? So before we worry about everybody else's why, what was your why? Um, is that a fair question?

Joanne: 1:03:18

That that feels like a better I totally agree. I think there can be lots of answers, right? But it just struck me when you say um, you know, that they're committed to you know the why, or you remind them of the why, or they have a commitment to the military. And I was just curious. Like I have people in my world that have served in the military their entire careers, you know, an aircraft maintenance one was in. And and and I it's just um interesting to me, because I thought about like what would ever draw me to the military? I'm not sure. Maybe a chaplain, right? Um, and so I just wanted a little bit of an insight to what's your why?

Justin: 1:03:57

So so I'll answer both of those questions because the universal why um doesn't exist. Uh everyone's why is different. Um for some, uh, it is the only road out of a really horrible childhood. Uh for some people, it's a search for meaning and belonging. Um for some people it's paid education, plain and simple. Um, for some people, it's a sense of belonging. For some people, it's history, family. Um, for some people, it's guaranteed paycheck. Um, and for some it's it's it's a national, I want to say nationalistic because it's that's like has a connotation right now, um, but it's a it's a part component of national identity. Um I went through chaplaincy training uh in my basic training with someone uh from another country who the Canadians helped liberate and they committed to themselves to emigrate to Canada and to give back in that way. Um so, in terms of of the why, um, there is no single answer. Um, which also makes my job as the chaplain in some ways easier and in some ways harder, because you can't help people like remember the why until you find out the why. Um and nobody's why is the same. In terms of my why, um there was a time that I did absolutely want to go into chaplaincy. I I did the thing and it didn't work, and I actually left um Demontary without any training, without any whatever, uh, and kind of gave it up and shelved it uh until I went into congregational ministry in in Calgary for a number of years. Um and in Calgary ran into and and served uh a number of uh active in Calgary, mostly like uh reservists, but active and retired uh military folks, um, and really realized the depth of um need uh for some of those folks um and got frustrated by it uh and and recognized sort of a of a gap in care uh and eventually kind of came to the conclusion that it was like either put up or shut up. Um so here I am.

Ricardo: 1:06:24

You could also say like the chaos of congregational ministry drove you back to the military.

Justin: 1:06:31

So shameless recruitment plug. If if you are in congregational ministry and are utterly uh finished with having to fundraise for your own salary, uh military chaplain seat is fantastic.

Bill: 1:06:48

This man does not represent ministry.

Joanne: 1:06:54

Well, it's really interesting because one of the ministers that I had at a church that I attended had come from a military chaplain seat, John Wright. Um, and he said, you know, in the military, people like to follow orders. So, like in the church, you'd say, you know, move that or come do this or come do that. Good. I like orders, tell me what to do. And it's not the same in congregational ministry. He found it very frustrating to deal with people who uh are not part of the military when you wanted to achieve something. Strike a committee, like a committee with a comment.

Ricardo: 1:07:24

Do a visioning experiment, listening campaign.

Justin: 1:07:27

Well, well, now let me couch that because the military is rife with administration.

Joanne: 1:07:32

Yeah.

Justin: 1:07:32

So if you're looking to get away from all things paperwork, don't think that the military is uh is your solution to that. Absolutely.

Bill: 1:07:40

Yeah. Um so you you have actually kind of quietly suggested here it was a question that I was gonna ask you later, but you did just kind of say there chaplaincy maybe. Um like what would what would take what would it take for Joanne to to cross over?

Joanne: 1:07:58

Um Well, I don't maybe a paycheck I don't have to fundraise for. I don't know. Um no, I think for me. Do you know, like um I make a really uh big distinction between the empire that makes the decisions, and I use that as a metaphor. The empire, I'm not suggesting we have like the you know, an empire, but in Jesus' time it was the empire that was you know that influenced so much, I guess, this awareness that being uh oppressed and a minority within an empire influenced Jesus theology so much. So there is a big distinction between the empire and the individual who serves, right? And there is something um particularly um, you know, heartfelt to me if someone is is called to serve, either, you know, there was conscription in this country and has been in the past, they're called to serve. I remember reading a statistic, I think it was in this, you know, when they used bayonets, you know, where you had to do it. And they found that um 20% of the people never fired it. They would just keep reloading because they just found the idea that they could cause violence and harm um so distressing, and yet they had to do this, right? I think about the people um who man drones from Arizona, is it way over in Europe? Do you know, like the disconnect in in humanity between this idea that we are tribal people who um carry each other and we are tribal people who go to war against other tribes, which is in us all, there is this disconnect, I think, in all of us that is part of the uh I don't want to say brokenness, but the the line of sort of um hurt and pain that goes through all of us. And so I could see being a chaplain in the sense if you're serving people who are working at the behest of a government or an empire, you know, and in that space uh experiences this uh dissonance and and um as ministers we're called to recognize in everyone's life that dissonance and try to find ways to bring healing and hope, right? And it does not matter what that person does to me. Like I think of prison chaplains who are dealing with people who have you know done horrible things, and yet you still just find the humanity to recognize the humanity, the belovedness of that person and minister to that to let them know, you know, I'm sure uh like accountability is always important, like forgiveness doesn't say it's okay, whatever you do. But particularly in these areas where you may be asked to do things that are really um difficult for you to resolve. Um I I think that is uh a way that um, you know, the love of God uh survives all. And to remind people of that is an important thing. So that's why I say, yeah, maybe a chaplain I could do. Um, particularly when you said Justin and I were talking earlier, and in the Canadian military, you don't carry arms at all as a chaplain, right? Which is not the same in other militaries. So if I never had to actually point that gun, like when I was my kids were little, I like you never point guns at people, like that, you know, like even play guns. And I would say, and it's shooting love, not bullets, you know, like I those kinds of things. That would be difficult for me to, you know, leap over that. But the idea that there are people in need of love and hope and a message of redemption, uh, you know, I'm there for that, for sure.

Justin: 1:11:59

Yeah, yeah. I uh on one of my travels, uh, was seated beside uh someone who told me they were a life coach. Um and we were we were having some good conversation and asked me what I do. Um, and uh and they posed a really interesting question to me. They asked, if you could give every person you serve one thing, what would it be? Um and my response was worth.

Trudy: 1:12:26

What? Sorry.

Justin: 1:12:27

Worth

Joanne: 1:12:28

value, yeah.

Justin: 1:12:29

Would be to remind them of their worth. Um because I think more than anything, that would get us closer to that peace that we all want, that we all talk about, um, but also to remind not only themselves of their own intrinsic worth, which as a Christian I completely believe and and I center my faith on, um, but also understand the gravity of which they the work that they do. Um yeah, and I and I love how you said um that cognitive dissonance, right? That uh we can work to heal, oh, was it the word you use heal um instead of alleviate? Um because I don't think you ever can alleviate the gravity to which the task at hand, um, but to reconcile that uh with the journey with and and as a Christian again for me that's that faith uh journey towards being better, right? And understanding not only the worth that um others have and and seeing the divine in them, um, but seeing it in myself and and being able to, you know, not forget, but forgive, to reconcile, to see, to understand, and and to really walk with folks. Um doing all of the things that that we all do on a daily basis, right? And understanding the worth of that. Um yeah. I like it.

Bill: 1:14:09

So you had talked about the idea of like accountability and forgiveness, right? Right. Um and so I'm going to I'm gonna ask Trudy, is there ever a time in um in all of this discourse when forgiveness uh and the need for us to work for reconciliation? Because you've done a lot of work around reconciliation and trust and and forgiveness um actually interferes with justice.

Trudy: 1:14:33

Well, that's that's been quite a question, for instance, in the context of South Africa, where um Mandela preached forgiveness, Tutu also preached forgiveness. The uh policies of the TRC didn't uh quite talk about that. They talked about amnesty, which is uh distinct because it's a state act, and there was a lot of discussion there about the uh compatibility or incompatibility of uh amnesty and justice, uh, because some victims felt that when amnesty was given to certain perpetrators, which was given on the basis that they had um confessed and testified before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, uh, some of the victims felt that uh that amnesty was a tantamount to forgiveness and it was tantamount to a pardon, and it was not compatible with the justice that they wanted for themselves. So that's an understanding of the justice for the victim, meaning the punishment in some form of the perpetrator, and there was a lot of debate around that. So that's certainly a context in which that has come up. And um, I think other contexts too, where you have a regime transition and you've had an abusive regime, and then in order to get the transition to work, they have a kind of reconciliatory process which does not include punishment of perpetrators. Um it's a big question. It's a much disputed question.

Bill: 1:16:18

Yeah. You you opened this evening talking about uh the the white poppy movement, right? And this idea that uh that there's there's there's a certainly a movement and a desire for us to remember victims of war that are not not purely the the soldiers who who serve. Um and and Joanne has talked about as well this idea that you know in the in the in the counterpoint to Pax Romana Um is this idea of like peace achieved through justice, uh and justice for all. And so much of our work, usually post-violence, maybe not post-conflict, but post-violence tends to be around um finding ways to reconcile, whether it be um uh administratively or or or relationally. Um but the the the question or the tension that I the tension that I notice a lot tends to be around um how it is that we how it is that we we work towards forgiveness in the absence of justice for um the victims that we then put the white poppies on for every year. Um and this seems to be a growing um a growing question as as as global conflict gets so much more difficult uh than it used to be. Um so so yeah, I I wonder how it is that we uh reconcile well, knowing that that there that that peace requires it um in some way, um but in in a way that still honors um honors the victims.

Trudy: 1:17:51

Yeah, well I think um a lot of uh serious um discussion and study has to go around uh two issues there. One is um what is justice for the victims? Uh, you know, and uh I I guess I'm sorry, I'm a bit losing track of your remark, but also what this reconciliation amounts to. And I mean I've written about the topic, but doesn't mean I actually know the answer to that question. I think it's um really complicated and uh it's tough because it can't you can't simply say that reconciliation means giving victims whatever they ask for. I mean it it can't be that. And I think there's a there's a tendency to lapse lapse into that, to think that somehow if a person is a is a victim, if they can c or have or can claim the status of a victim, then they become some kind of authority on certain kinds of justice. And uh I I'm afraid to say this, but I think that's actually not correct. And uh a more a reasonable sort of understanding is is needed. Um that and I've I believe that's still an issue in South Africa. I used to have a better understanding of the South African situation because for a number of years I worked closely with a colleague there, but we've both gone on to other things. And now that I'm not so much in touch with this person, um my understanding is not really up to date. But I I know that those were very, very vexed issues there. And I think they're also vexed issues here, although somewhat less gross, I hope, but there are they are issues.

Bill: 1:19:45

Yeah, for sure.

Joanne: 1:19:47

I think there's a real distinction in in hearing your conversation between the reaction of someone who's a direct victim and the society in able to move on, right? Do you know? So um, like I have met people just a few times in my life where like the visceral, you know, I don't know if it's hatred, but reaction they have to another um ethnic group is very strong. I remember getting a haircut once and he was a Palestinian. And the whole time he was cutting my hair, I just wanted a haircut. But the whole time he was talking about the oppression. This was, you know, a long time ago, before the Gaza thing, but um the oppression of his family and what the Israelis uh were doing, which I could totally understand. Okay, yeah, I'm gonna I hear you um and uh recognize your pain, right? Um, and I remember being actually in in Israel and um the West Bank and stuff when I was like in grade seven, so it was the 70s. And that was the first time I met this cab driver who who had a lot of resentment, even though he lived in Israel, had a lot of resentment against the Israelis. And he said something that, you know, really struck me. He's like, you know, the Israelis, they come in and they make the oranges grow too fast, right? Like it was like his relationship, it was so fraught that even something as small as that just contributes to his feelings about that. Another man uh that I know, well, once someone who was fixing my bike is was from Serbia, and he did not like Muslim people. He said, 500 years we've been fighting them, right? And I just left feeling so sad more than anything, that there doesn't seem to be a way to um get over these and and maybe there shouldn't be, to get over these deep hurts that are generational. Generational hurts. But as a society, like so how how do you ever, it was like last podcast when how will you ever have a family that's lost someone to murder think that a sentence is is long enough? Like it will never happen. Um, and and in in these situations, so as a society, you might say, okay, we're gonna provide amnesty because we recognize if we're gonna move forward together and if they're gonna lay down their arms, we have to give them some kind of protection. And a society, you know, a larger body, maybe it is the empire again, can make a decision to do that. But you cannot force someone who has um such deep-seated uh distrust, sometimes hatred, of another side to just suddenly go along with that.

Trudy: 1:22:43

Well, I think that's true. I think you can't force that. I think though, um these these quote, deep-seated hatreds are often uh a pr a product of education. Yes. And they're a product of media, and that those things can be altered. But I all uh what some people recommend is a common task.

Joanne: 1:23:04

Yeah.

Trudy: 1:23:04

And I remember one workshop Plowshares put on a number of years ago when somebody was describing reconciliation at a particular place, and these opposed communities had gotten together on garbage removal, and they did a lot of effective garbage removal together, and it really helped their relationships. Now, this is kind of a silly example, but um it in his experience it had been effective. I think that um rather than feeling gloomy about so-called 500-year-old hatreds, maybe we should sort of look into the metaphysical structure of these 500 years and also think about ways to go ahead. It's reminiscent of this famous um comment that President Reagan had made to Gorbachev in the, I think it was the late 80s, when he uh it asked Gorbachev, uh, would the Russians and the Americans get together if they were evaded from invaded from outer space? And and Gorbachev said, well, he was kind of taken aback, but he said, Well, yes. And when you think about that, it's probably true.

Joanne: 1:24:13

Common enemy.

Trudy: 1:24:14

I mean, uh, you know, you don't have to have, in my opinion, a common enemy, but a common task might be a good idea. And, you know, we've got uh some common ones. Right.

Joanne: 1:24:27

And well, and I think what I was trying to say was you have to deal with those individuals. Well, you know, like obviously they need uh as much care, victims need as much care as perpetrators in some ways, more, right? Um, but there can be decisions that are made on a macro level that will not solve the micro problem. And we need as people think particularly as people of faith, ministers, chaplains, whatever, our job is often in that space where the hurt is so deep that finding a way, maybe not to um certainly not to forget, right? But where forgiveness releases them again from this need to seek revenge, right? And I I love the idea of a common project. I think you're absolutely right. How can we build something together and and and see each other as humanity instead of as enemies? It's just two things to me.

Ricardo: 1:25:29

It's also important to understand that and you brought up the topic of regime change in many ways, or like or leadership change in different countries, right? And how it can be peaceful, but to meet people where they're at, because sometimes we impose our systems and values upon countries that don't necessarily it won't work. Like I think of um Afghanistan, after the Soviets for almost decades tried to try to control that area and failed, the Taliban took over and then America took over there, and then now the Taliban's back again. And it's just like where is the middle ground for this country, this this landlocked country that basically the the most the their their biggest um threat to the world is opium, right? You know? And so um we uh have to balance what the needs, I mean, national security and all those kind of things are or world peace is is is obviously a big goal, but we have to balance the needs of like that country and what what's needed in that area um before we exercise our principles and our beliefs upon them. Because perhaps, I mean, I don't know. I think about like um China, for example, now, right? If if in 1.5 billion people, like if you have never been to China, you can't fathom the crowds. Like if you've been to the Calgary Stampede, that's just that's every day in China. That's your neighborhood. When I went there, and I think to myself, like, if there's ever a natural disaster, like the systems we have here in North America would be too far gone. They have to have these stringent controls and measures in place. But if for exact if if for example, you know, they had some sort of uh uprising or coup or or whatever happened there, like what would we how would the world respond um after or before the military interventions? And what would our plans be? And that's that's what I think lacks a lot of um uh in in the world today when we have these military interventions like in Iraq, um, like in Afghanistan. What's the plan afterwards for um helping these people control? Then you you mentioned Gaza. Um, and really Gaza right now is just a pile of rubble. The entire area is just pummeled and continues to be pummeled. What's the plan now? Right?

Bill: 1:27:42

Isn't the plan the Council of Peace that uh Trump is gonna be the chair of? Isn't that what I heard? Isn't that what your plan is?

Ricardo: 1:27:49

At one point in time,

Joanne: 1:27:50

I think it's a resort. 

Ricardo: 1:27:51

Yeah, exactly. At one point in time was under American control and building the beautiful Missorica. But there's still two million people that are in this open-air prison for all intents and purposes.

Trudy: 1:28:01

It is completely daunting when you just even look at the television news and look at the rubble there, and you just imagine that somebody somehow, some agent has to clear that away and construct something so some people might be able to live with a roof over their head. It is absolutely mind-boggling. And my impression is that there is not a solid plan to rebuild that. And if there is a plan, it's shaky and it assumes that you can have Donald Trump as the head person in charge of the main committee. I think this is a non-starter.

Ricardo: 1:28:45

Well, what perplexes me the most is like uh, you know, we we intervene, like Syria is another example, right? They've ostensibly found peace. I don't think it's peace, I think it's just they stop fighting each other and killing each other after like uh a decade and a half of war. But what's the plan now? Sure, we've listed we've lifted sanctions, but there's nothing left. Like what where do we build from there? And I I think what frustrates me the most after war, um, and after World War II, the countries got together. The formation of the United Nations was the countries getting together and saying, we have a council or um an organization dedicated to peace. I don't know how effective it is now. I mean, I found a unit.

Joanne: 1:29:21

Well, a European Union too, right?

Ricardo: 1:29:23

The EU. You know, I found a UN flag at the at Valley Village for three dollars, and it was a very moral argument in my head. I still bought it. But um we we we intervene, and as soon as peace happens, and when I say peace, the normal bullets or flight the cessation of war, people are like, well, I don't know really what to do now.

Bill: 1:29:41

Like, whose job is it now to clean this up? Right? Well, but in the absence of that, so so I guess for me, at the at my at my base level, um in the absence of some kind of a tangible direction vision plan towards we're gonna make sure that um again, let's just use gas that we're gonna we're Going to we're going to clean this up. We're going to invest in rebuilding it. We're going to make sure that people there have enough that they can that they can not just survive, but can hopefully thrive, live, live a good life, and be okay. In the absence of that, saying you should not feel like you want what your neighbor has that they are not prepared to give you while you sit in squalor is just as unjust and unethical as as anything, right?

Ricardo: 1:30:32

That's a handoff approach, is what's frustrating, right? After World War II, okay, after World War I, Germany had to do these crippling reparations to the European nations in terms of goats and money and whatever. And they figured out that probably wasn't the best battle plan because Hitler came back and said, you know, this is this is enough.

Joanne: 1:30:47

They're oppressing us.

Ricardo: 1:30:48

They're oppressing us, right? So they went to World War II. After World War II, I don't know if the East and West German divide was the best battle plan either, but they tried something. And I find that now we are really good at stopping whatever threat we feel is occurring somewhere in the world. We are not very good at cleaning it up and developing peace, right? And you mentioned Desmond Tutu, and I'll let you he says, you know, we can't remain silent. If we are neutral in times of injustice, we have taken the side of the oppressor. That's it. Desmond Tutu said that, right? And so uh if we're gonna say that this person is the oppressor of a certain group of people, then we better damn well make sure that we are on the opposite side of that oppressor in times of war and and and make that oppressor go away forever and and clean up the people. Because then you have, once again, generational traumas from from like the the Gaza war is only one small microcasm over the last 80 years of Israeli and Palestinian conflict, right? Generation after generation will still have that anger. I I have people who work in car washes and car rental agencies, uh, and they put Eritreans and Ethiopians together in the same area and they wonder why there's fist fights. But then you know they get we get they get called into manager like, oh no, no, it's fine, it's fine, we'll just go back to work, it's fine. But these are things like I don't even know this person. I just know from you, you're from a country that hated my country and oppressed me, so you're going down. In a car wash Calgary. I feel like this has actually been the narrative though.

Trudy: 1:32:13

I think that if people took more seriously the difficulty of recovering from a war, exactly, it would give a very powerful incentive to not engage in the war in the first place. And certainly if you thought that you had the political or legal or moral responsibility to rebuild after a war, um perhaps you would be hesitating about smashing all those apartment buildings and so on and so forth. I think there's a sense that uh, you know, when the war will end and you'll be the winner, and then that'll be it, and then all everything will be hunky-dory. And you're right, that's is that is extremely simplistic. And um it is, I think these wars that are going on now, it is going to be horrendously difficult to recover from these wars.

Ricardo: 1:33:08

When I went to Poland a few years ago, I I visited Auschwitz, and of course it's a completely uh tragic and life-changing experience to visit that concentration camp. But when I was there, there was a group of Jewish students that were praying uh quite loudly in the middle of the field there, and that that's part of the curriculum. Every student in Israel must go to Auschwitz as part of their and um I think back to when you know when the Soviets first arrived in Auschwitz and things were bombed, and you know, the the Germans tried, you know, getting rid of as much of the evidence as possible, and the the American president had said take pictures and document this so that for generations to come we will never forget.

Bill: 1:33:46

And I think when in the beginning of this podcast, when I said we're forgetting, it's that like we need to and again, even more to like and and Joanne followed up with, and we're actually now actively denying, right? Um, and by we, not we sitting at this table. But uh yes, let's be clear about that. Um that we've reached this point now where the distance is so far that someone can come in and say, Yeah, never happened. And there is a population of people who are oh yeah, maybe, maybe they're right, maybe it never actually happened. It's like the moon landing. The moon landing, right? Um, so on and so on. So um rant over, sorry. I was gonna say it before you started the rant. Um one of one of the things that uh one of the things that I feel has changed in my lifetime, and maybe I'm wrong, and I'm gonna oversimplify it and I'll get called to task for it, um, is that conflict in and of itself has kind of changed, right? So I I grew up in elementary school, early junior high, with sort of this understanding, and we've talked about peacekeeping before on this podcast as well, um, and and certainly the Canadian identity being tied to that um in so many ways. Maybe not so much now as it was when I was a kid, because in my lifetime I feel like um conflict has changed um in a lot of ways. And and I actually feel like um it was Rwanda that in many ways highlighted just how much conflict has changed in my lifetime. When uh the the understanding used to be this this side and this side are fighting, we're gonna draw a line down the middle, and we are gonna populate it with peacekeepers, and we are gonna keep the fighters away from each other. Um, and we're gonna figure out diplomacy and all that other stuff and and ways to to coexist and and be at peace or at least the cessation of violence um across this DMZ or you know, whatever the case may be. And we would populate it with uh usually a UN peacekeeping force, um, so that it was never one country that was responsible for maintaining this this peace. And and in Rwanda, what ended up happening oversimplified version here, um, is there there was no line you could draw because neighbors right next to each other were in the midst and communities were absolutely filled with all warring. There was no dividing line. There was no, you guys go to your corner and you guys go to your corner because it was it was the the whole of the community. Um, and it was just throughout uh throughout all of it. And and in that kind of a scenario, um peace through justice feels like a really monumental task, regardless of what the cleanup is afterwards. Just getting the fighting to stop feels like a monumental task when you cannot even. I have the luxury of knowing I can send my kids to their rooms, right? If it gets really bad, timeouts for everybody until we all calm down, right? You can't do that if you're both in the same room. Um it's it's an impossibility to kind of leverage that on any scale. Um so peace through justice, um and and again, forgiveness and grace and all these, like these are these are the the important conversations, I think. How do we do this in a world where um where communities are almost more um enmeshed with each other? Um, and that's a good thing. And in the ideal circumstance, you know, any opportunity you have to live in diverse communities is gonna strengthen your community for the better.

Joanne: 1:37:08

But how easy is it? So this is again the powers and principalities in um uh what was Yugoslavia, the big city there. Oh Sarajevo. They lived in communities together, intermarried, were at peace for a very long time. And someone comes along and starts instilling this hatred and bringing same thing in Rwanda. I mean, they were one people until some British people decided they were gonna figure out who is the Houtis and who are the you know, Tootsis and Hutus. And and they decided, and all of a sudden there's an identity marker that means that you can go to war, like it becomes this, like I said, tribalism. These are my people. You know, like it's not too far under the surface at any time for nefarious actors who can go and in, you know, um and say, you are this person, you are better than them. And and we as human beings too easily fall prey to these words. It begins with words almost always, right? So um if we're gonna have, you know, instead of the idea of a cessation of violence as a peace and go to, you know, um God shalom as a peace, in other words, a peace that means prosperity for all, where from Sunday scripture, you know, you beat your swords into plowshares and your spears into pruning hooks. Project plowshares, that's what it's all about, right? Where everyone sits underneath their vine and fig tree. That's God shalom. That's peace through justice. And every time we are tempted to beat the drums of war because someone is telling us they're our enemy and they're different than us, they are not human, they are not as good as we are. We must as loudly beat the drums of God shalom. No, there is a way that we can see those people who we are in conflict with not as our enemies. There has to be that has to be that has to be as loud, you know. And I think of like when the United Church's stance when it went to World War II, for instance, there was like 90 ministers who signed um a uh peace kind of thing, you know, like no war. They were pacifists, a pacifist. And the United Church very quickly turned on that because of the what was going on. No, this is not the United Church. And they basically on a dime went to poor king and country. Do you know? Like inside our beloved United Church, it is so easy to follow the words, right? You know, in the book True Believer, Eric Hoffer says, first come the men of words, the ones who lay the narrative for the rest of us to go to war. And it's at that place, before we're ever anywhere near that, that the peacekeepers, the diplomats, the people who can think deeply about these things must speak as loudly. And unfortunately, we don't do that. We don't. There is a way that we can proclaim God shalom as loudly as um defeat your enemy. That's our work.

Speaker 6: 1:40:41

This is not the end of the podcast, though. That was pretty good. That was pretty good. Well, we're still going, right?

Bill: 1:40:45

Well, it should, it should actually be pretty close to that. I I do want to say though. I do want to say I'm actually feeling I'm sitting here feeling kind of vindicated right now that my scripture choices elicited so. I'm also sitting here deciding whether or not I want to really set you off right now because uh the place where I've heard the best description of this this idea of of you know everybody being able to be in community together, regardless of look uh disregarding the words of they're different than you, they're less than you, they're there's actually been Justin's description of the military, actually at the start, right?

Justin: 1:41:30

So um at the risk of like oversimplifying, if we're if we're heading down that road, I'll jump on board. Um you talk about shared tasks and shared hardships and shared common like in the military, we call that PT. Like we call that getting up at 5 a.m. and going for a run. Yeah. No matter who you are, what rank you are, and realizing you all sweat and you at some point you all throw up on the side of the road.

Bill: 1:41:58

I was gonna say, or you all just realize that your life just sucks as much as your neighbors, regardless, right? So yeah.

Justin: 1:42:03

Absolutely. And every single person that you see wearing the uniform has gone through some version of basic training. And at some point in their career, they have woken up way too early to make a bed for no other reason than someone told them to, and can share that in common with the thought that why am I here? I chose this. Like I volunteered for this suffering. And yet, in the midst of that, one of my favorite, and I do use that word, favorite uh memories from basic training, is waking up way before the sun in the midst of this like hanging mist and going for a ruck march with way too much weight, with way too many people realizing that this is actually what it's about. Because the people coming from every corner of Canada that I didn't know before coming onto parade where you all have no idea how to do drill, and realizing you all suck at this, there's like a galvanizing process that brings you from strangers to comrades to those that you know their last names before their first names, but also will never forget them. Yeah.

Trudy: 1:43:22

But I'll bet you that people in the military would also get that sense of camaraderie if they were working together to fight a forest fire or an ice storm or were were working in hospitals during COVID, as some of them were to our national in uh, in a sense, shame. But I mean, the military were called into aging homes in Ontario, and they did serve, and I'm sure they did some unpleasant tasks there, um, helping people who were elderly and were were very ill. So one of my hopes for the increased uh strength and resiliency and higher salaries of the military is that there will be some multitasking there, because I think we've already had that from our military, where we've had assistance with fighting fires, we've had assistance with fighting ice storms, we've had assistance with even with health concerns. And um, I think that kind of camaraderie that you refer to is valuable and that it can be gained from other tasks as well. Not I mean basic training, sure, yeah. Uh running till you're exhausted, uh yes. Getting up too early, certainly. But also, you know, if you were fighting one of these horrific forest fires that we see nowadays, I'm sure it would come there as well.

Justin: 1:44:45

Absolutely. Oh, yeah. And I've been on and I've been on those uh those front lines too with folks. Um and those are the moments that that in the midst of the the shared hardship, in the midst of the suck, um, those bonds are formed. Um and there's there's hardly a medic uh that I have talked to that hasn't gone through OP Laser that doesn't talk to another medic and get it. Um they know what they're talking about without having to talk about it. Um and and Chaplin C is filled with um work along those lines, uh unpacking some of those moral injuries, assisting some of those folks to not to not to forget, uh not even to forgive, but to reconcile, to reform at least some part of the humanity um that they can then carry on the task with. But yet you're absolutely right, right? Those those are the third shared things, right? Um the folks that you deploy with, the folks that you sail with, the folks that you train with, the folks that all through the the regimental systems or the units you serve alongside of, um, those those are the connections um that absolutely sometimes are are the why.

Joanne: 1:46:04

Well, and they're also the ones that are galvanized if you need to go to war, right? Those bonds that you form in training, getting up early in the morning, are also those bonds that will make you shoot an enemy for each other. Always have to be careful when we talk about tribalism, do you know? Like because like we don't live in a binary world. We live in the gray zone, right? And it's very difficult sometimes to think deeply about, like I like when you say moral injury, to think deeply about uh or even about what we're really doing, and um see both sides to this wonderful experience of being together in, you know, we're all in this together, and then an enemy comes and we are still all in this together, right? You know, like that's the reality of human life. Um to try and move past. I saw um, I think it was NT Wright, it was a British theologian who was talking about um one of the uh reasons that people don't like diversity and equity, is they say, you know, this is probably American, it's Marxist, right? It's Marxist. And he goes, No, you are wrong. It's Jesus. That was the beginning of this idea that there is no male or female, there's no slave or free, there is no Greek, no Jew. We are all one in Christ. And and this idea, like that's God's alone, do you know? And and to see your enemy as um human like you, a beloved, with families and everything. When we take the humanity um out of any of our thinking, you know, any of our thinking, when someone's identity can be more important than their humanity, we're running into trouble. We're in that space where we can easily be drawn into conflict. Yeah.

Bill: 1:48:00

So perhaps the the shared project, if we if we were to set the aspirational goal, the shared project is peace. In the absence of that, or in until that day comes that we can all find a way to work on that together, um, we have identified a number of other fantastic ways that people can come together to work for the betterment of society, for our world, for those who are vulnerable, those who are suffering, those who are struggling, be it forest fires, be it aged care homes. Um in the middle of it all, um, peace remains the goal. Um peace remains the goal in our lifetime, or in whatever lifetime we can we can manage it. Um before we're gonna move into last comments, I have one final question for everybody. But before that happens, I just wanted to say a huge thank you both to Justin and to Trudy for being here tonight. This has been an engaging conversation to say the least. I know we could go for a lot longer, but I am aware of the time. So uh I'm going to I'm gonna kind of try to pull us full circle here. One final question, and we will just go down the line. I'm actually gonna start with Ricardo and work this way. So you're gonna get the last word, Justin. Um, the question is uh next whether it be this past remembrance day, next remembrance day, remembrance day. Um the bugler plays the last post, two minutes of silence, bugler plays the reveal. We all um leave whatever service or whatever we are at or watching. What is the message that needs to be taken away as we leave after that moment of remembrance?

Ricardo: 1:49:35

Never forget the why and what we're working towards, right? Um and I always say I say that with um with humility because a lot of people um didn't know why they were just signed up and told to go, right? So um we can hope that the lessons we've learned from there will continue on to what we we have goals for today.

Joanne: 1:49:57

So I think um always is is to honor uh the sacrifice that was made and uh remember so that this doesn't happen again. Um and the uh making sure the narrative is we live in hope, we work for peace, sometimes we just pass the torch. In our space and our time, remember what our job is, and that's to work towards a place where we don't have to have Remembrance Day for all the people who have fallen, that we can remember how we overcame the division.

Trudy: 1:50:42

Well, I think I would say um work to save the world from nuclear weapons and from severe climate change.

Justin: 1:50:55

Yeah, I would say maintaining uh and remembering the humanity uh in the midst of all that uh is before us.

Bill: 1:51:04

All right. And with that, we are going to all it...

Speaker 5: 1:51:07

What's you?

Bill: 1:51:08

What do you mean, what's me? I'm the host.

Joanne: 1:51:11

I don't know. You have a lot of opinions for a host. Oh my goodness.

Bill: 1:51:15

Um I would I would say the the the the takeaway, the takeaway always uh for me is remember that you are a beloved child of God. Um so is that person you're not sure you like. Um that we are better when we are together. Uh but uh the complexity of topics like this reflects the complexity of humanity uh and the complexity of the world we live in and the fragility of all that truly matters in our world. So uh take care of it and take care of yourselves and take care of each other, and uh just know that you are loved regardless of where you find yourself on this journey. And so, with that, uh we are going to call that an end to the discussion, and we will uh thank our live guests, our live guests for being here, our live uh audience for being here in the room. It was a packed house tonight, and thank you to all of the panelists for this discussion. Thank you to the United Church Foundation for their generous grant that helps to support this podcast. And uh thank you for listening. Wherever you're listening from, whether you are Ricardo's shout-out from Japan or just down the street from the church, uh, we are grateful that you are listening, and hopefully we have sparked some great uh thought and conversation for you to continue uh as we work towards peace in our world. And with that, this has been Prepared to Drown. Good night. And that brings our conversation to a close. Thank you for listening and for giving your time to a topic that carries weight for so many people. Remembrance asks something of us. It asks us to honor sacrifice and to hold on to compassion at the same time, and it asks us to keep working toward peace in all the places where peace feels fragile. If you want to keep exploring this conversation, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, or join us on Patreon. You can also find past episodes and blog posts and more on our website. And if you are in Calgary, you are always welcome to join us for a live recording at McDougal United Church. But before we go, hear this. You are beloved and you carry worth that no conflict can take away from you. And you are part of a world that needs people who choose compassion and courage and solidarity. This has been Prepared to Drown. Take care of yourself, take care of one another, and may we all keep working toward the world that we dared to imagine tonight.