Can we say 'God' in Canada?

Hello

At the risk of sounding flakey, I will tell you that this entry is based on a dream I had a couple of nights ago...which I suppose means that I was asleep at some point that night...

I was walking in what looked a bit like an old-style mall...you know the type where you wander off the street into what looks like an exposed hallway or alleyway that has stores off of it...perhaps I'm remembering what I've seen in Europe.

Anyway...things were decorated for Christmas, in a fairly standard non-religious way.

I came across one building full of people, joyfully listening to a speaker who was telling the throng that we CAN say "God" in Canada...

The speaker referred to incidences I recognized from my own life in which I was rather surprised that what I was seeing and hearing was at odds with the politically correct notions we are told we hold as Canadians.

When my two oldest children were in Kindergarten, not so very long ago, I was very surprised to see 'priest' up on the board illustrating various occupations a person might have. This same school, which was a public school, also had no problems with singing 'real' CHRISTmas carols at Christmas time.

I might add here that we were at the time in the most politically correct part of the country, I'm sure. Well, next to Toronto anyway! That would be the Comox Valley in British Columbia...

Never at any time in my employed life, which I will admit was not a long one, was I told either by a boss or by a customer that I was wrong to say "Merry Christmas" when greeting a customer.

Currently, I live in a community which seems to have no problem waking people up on a Sunday morning with church bells.

This same community, and I think every other one I"ve lived in, has no issues with Christmas Nativity scenes on public property either.

Maybe it's me, but I don't feel any shame in praying a Rosary or a Divine Mercy Chaplet while I walk, either. No one has ever commented on it.

I suppose if anyone really had their shirts in a knot over this issue, they'd have managed to get the references to God taken out of our national anthem.

I do know it was a Catholic chaplain who was 'pro-active' in getting the cross taken from the Canadian chaplains' cap badge. Had any Jews or Muslims complained? No.

I wonder if we aren't too busy trying to read peoples' minds and act on what we think we see there...

So how did the dream wind up? I can't tell you. But I did wake up with a sense that we need to be aware that it may be kinder territory for Christians than we sometimes are led to believe.