A voice missed

Earlier this month, a longtime voice in The Citizen went silent. It hadn’t been heard from for more than a year but in previous years, and decades, had been very prominent. I am talking about my mother, Julia Serup, who might have been the most prolific letter writer in Citizen history.

I am a little surprised that at my father’s passing this spring, there was mention of him in the paper besides his paid obituary, which was very nice, but at my mother’s passing, there has not been anything.

In any event, my mother was truly a woman of letters, having penned many epistles for the paper. She, at times, upset people but she spoke for so many that The Citizen inevitably ran her letters. She wrote from her convictions, from the facts, yet as time went on, the paper would limit the amount of her letters they would print and refused to publish some at all.

I don’t know if hers is a bygone era, when people could write things that others might vigorously disagree with without being called “hateful” and censored. My mother’s lifelong values were those of the 1950s which produced much of the baby boom, with its echo, the last time in Canadian history that citizens felt optimistic enough, felt happy enough about Canada to produce sufficient children to keep the population up to replacement levels. During the 1950s and later, homosexuality was illegal in Canada and anyone assisting an abortion was liable for life in prison.

I recently read an online post published in The Citizen that spoke, with disdain, of the Christian Heritage Party, that opposes homosexual marriage and abortion. They get their beliefs however, from the word of God.

Despite how their convictions are obtained, some, like my mother, would be called hateful. This a term that is designed to elicit an immediate negative reaction and shut down all discussion, and thought along with it. My mother, however, had the courage to speak out regardless of the false and derogatory things said about her. I remember many people saying over the years, though they didn’t know her, they very much appreciated what she had to say. She also was a wonderful mother who was tremendously influential in my life.

The Christian Heritage Party is far from holding power, with their horrible viewpoints, which they get from the Bible. It is curious though, as Canada exists today, with the right kind of beliefs holding sway, if the rest of the planet were to be destroyed in a nuclear war, (we are told with Trump it could happen), and the fate of the world was in our hands, mankind would be doomed.

It’s funny how with the wrong, “hateful” beliefs, there was such optimism and an attendant increase in population accompanying that hope, and with the perfect, currently politically correct views there is an opposite effect.

Psalm 144:15b reads “...happy is that people, whose God is the Lord.” As societal norms reflected biblical ones, these happy people produce more progeny, enough for the survival of a nation, as Canadian history shows.

I am glad my mother was one of those happy people, through her saving faith in Jesus Christ.

Paul Serup Prince George