Where the healing begins.

On 1 AM Wednesday morning, I touched down at YVR for the second time in a month - this time, to stay. I don't know that I've ever had a season so rough as the one I'm in now, and there came a point in this dark, damaging time that I knew I needed to release my grip on all my hopes, plans and dreams for the summer and come "home" - an ambiguous, confusing term, which here refers to British Columbia. My focusing in coming back is to recover, to heal, from what has been the most exhausting, confusing, challenging, frustrating, heartbreaking time of my life. Doors have opened here in BC that were previously closed, and just in time. I am filled with hope and a sense that this is the will of the Lord for me this summer, and while there is a disappointment in letting go of plans and dreams I'd long cherished, there is also such a peace and joy that comes with the confidence that I am walking in the will of the Father (not that I was avoiding his will before - I was earnestly seeking it out, but simply could not see it clearly).

Coming home on Wednesday meant something sweet - I could go downtown for game 7! I've only this past year really started to watch/play/appreciate hockey (in each case, quite casually), but I thought it would be a really cool experience to celebrate what would hopefully be the first Stanley Cup win for the Vancouver Canucks. I really love Vancouver (though, as you can read here, I have wondered at that love and the nature of this city, ever since me and James' formative reading break adventure in November of 2009) and to celebrate with the rest of the province on my first day back seemed an exciting way to kick-off my summer of restoration.

I was horrified and confused, then, at what transpired instead. From where I was watching the game downtown erupted a chaos unlike anything I'd seen - and thankfully, some of which I only saw through media, and not with my own eyes. The Vancouver riots were disgusting, as anyone who has watched CTV or Global in the past few days is well aware of. What started with fires and fist-fights ended up a bloody mess of millions of dollars in destroyed property, four stabbings and one man thrown off the viaduct. People who tried to do good, police and civilians alike, were mobbed and beaten cruelly for their efforts. The VPD fought back with tear gas and rubber bullets. Transit systems were locked down for the most part, and the madness spilled onto the SkyTrain. Being in this chaos, unsure of how to safely get home, was a draining and unforeseen experience that I wish I could un-live.

But the worst part of this was the way that the so-called "small group of criminals" were surrounded by hundreds thousands of cheering supporters. The way that the moral fortitude of those around me caved, and lawlessness and destruction were embraced; it was entertaining, fascinating, even worthy, apparently, of praise and adoration. I couldn't sleep when I got back to Braden's house - the sounds and sights of it all played through my mind at a subconscious level, and the next day, seeing footage on the news of the morally upright being brutally beaten for taking a stand, I felt overwhelmed and nauseated.

Experiencing a trauma was not what I had hoped for on my first day back in BC, but already the Lord is using it to make his goodness known. Following the riots, a time when I was surrounded by so many people embracing godlessness, it was relieving to arrive home and see that the majority of Vancouverites, and people all over, were disgusted with the events as well. Onlookers back home did not find it to be excellent or praiseworthy. The amount of love and support that have poured out, in the amount of people helping clean up downtown, was incredibly heartening to see. The Canucks posted a video on their official site showcasing the clean-up efforts and heralding the beginning of a healing process.

I went downtown today with a friend who had been caught in the riot as well. We looked at boarded-up windows filled with words defying the evil that had overrun the streets a few nights prior; words of anger, yes, but more than that, of hope and love and healing. There was a police car absolutely covered in sticky-notes and letters of gratitude written by civilians. Where hate had made its mark, love spoke up louder. To see something so damaging and seemingly irreversible be redeemed gives me great hope for redemption in my heart this summer, in areas I had thought lost.

It seems to me that for both me and the city I've come home to, this is where the healing begins.