When I celebrated the 200th birthday of America I was a student at Aquinas Institute of Religious Studies in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It was there I had the privilege of meeting and becoming friends with members of the CSJ community. There I learned that July 1st, Canada Day, parallels our July 4th. It was then I sang for the first time, O Canada. It felt so familiar, so in tune with a sense of shared values. The friendships were built on shared faith and values as well.
We share our values learned from faith, family, and our country. In the Declaration of Independence, we read “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” The Canadian fundamental core values are given a more specific enumeration in The Charter of Freedoms and Rights: Freedom and Individual Rights, Inclusion and Diversity, Fairness and Equality, Compassion and Public Safety. As our societies become increasingly more complex defining and living these values also becomes more complex.
