Ten years ago today was moving day for my family. Most people in our city remember the day for another event, Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final, Vancouver vs. Boston.
We lost.
Vancouver had been up two games to none in the best of seven series. Boston levelled the series at 2-2 before Vancouver won Game 5. Game 6 was again won by the home team, this time in Boston, setting up Game 7 in Vancouver.
Game 7 was the only game to be lost by the home team.
The Boston Bruins won the Stanley Cup that year. My family and I watched the game with friends who had helped us move that day.
As we were sorting, not yet unpacking, there was a riot downtown. Businesses were trashed, cars were flipped over and set on fire, some people were attacked, punched, assaulted.
Of course, the familiar refrain severing any connection to the rioters was repeatedly issued by many people, “Those were not really Canucks fans”. Except they were. Easily the most popular item worn by rioters was a Vancouver Canucks jersey.
We see this severing tendency over and over again in many contexts and circumstances.
“Those are not real Canadians” or “those are not real Christians”.
This disconnect can happen even with one person when they reference some wrongdoing of their own as if it were committed by someone they just don’t know.
You have heard it before:
“People who know me know that that is not who I am”, that kind of thing.
The tendency to say things like “we are not like that” or “I am not like that”, even as we are speaking about our own behaviour, shows not a positive progression in what it means to be human, but rather a denial. It is all to easy to judge others by their worst behaviour and ourselves by our best intentions.
Every one of us (excepting perhaps sociopaths) knows what it means to feel contrition. Most of us feel some kind of contrition everyday; “I should not have said what I said. I should have done more to help. I wish I had not done what I did.”
Contrition and honesty about our shortcomings can become overwhelming, but contrition and honesty are often key components of emotional health and freedom.
I heard this morning on CBC radio a remarkable interview (if you choose to listen, the interview begins around 9:35 of the segment) with one of the rioters from 2011 who wound up being charged and spending 4 months in jail for his actions.
He was asked if looking back now (he has “turned his life around”) he can believe that it was him who acted in such terrible ways. His answer was refreshing and even hopeful. He said yes. He owned up to it. He said he did believe that was him. He said that was the kind of thing that he easily got caught up in when he was 20 years old. He described himself in honest terms.
He then asked if he could read a poem that he had written about that night. He had completed a creative writing degree at UBC in the years since 2011. In the poem he named what he had done that night. He described the scene and his actions. He compellingly referred to the rioters as a “congregation”. The poem then ended with two remarkable expressions. The first was a request for forgiveness. The second was a word that has become a caricature. It is religious sounding word that has been too often used as a weapon in condemning others, rather than as a gift in expressing our own frailty and self-centredness. In the poem it sounded like a door to hope.
The young man wrote, “I repent”.