But how are people interpreting and working towards reconciliation?
Senator Murray Sinclair stated, "If you thought the truth was hard, reconciliation will be harder." This podcast is a forum to face the difficult, complicated, and messy nature of reconciliation. We have heard Indigenous leaders call settler people to step into this reconciliation journey.
Within this podcast we intend to deliberately place ourselves, those who come from a predominately settler background, in this space and identify where we can be challenged and encouraged to keep moving towards reconciliation.
Reconcile: Everyday Conversations is a project of Mennonite Central Committee Saskatchewan.
But how are people interpreting and working towards reconciliation?
Senator Murray Sinclair stated, "If you thought the truth was hard, reconciliation will be harder." This podcast is a forum to face the difficult, complicated, and messy nature of reconciliation. We have heard Indigenous leaders call settler people to step into this reconciliation journey.
Within this podcast we intend to deliberately place ourselves, those who come from a predominately settler background, in this space and identify where we can be challenged and encouraged to keep moving towards reconciliation.
Reconcile: Everyday Conversations is a project of Mennonite Central Committee Saskatchewan.
Dave Feick, executive director of The Micah Mission, has spent his life meeting people wherever they are and walking along with them for a bit. In these spaces, which he often views as holy moments, he recognizes the importance of breaking down walls and learning to build bridges with one another to achieve reconciliation. Dave believes that the purpose of reconciliation is to live compatibly with one another and to not put people into a mold that society wants them to be.
Dave has challenged these molds many times in his work as a prison chaplain and reintegration chaplain. He has witnessed that, “Our prisons today are very much the residential schools of yesterday. We are still finding ways to oppress people, we are trying to make them fit into a certain type of mold that society wants. And it’s just not working.” He challenges us to work towards reconciliation by visiting those who are or have been incarcerated. “Treating them with respect and understanding their situation goes a much longer way than to ignore them and reject them.”
We invited Dave into our house and around our dining room table to have a conversation around these five questions:
1. How would you define reconciliation?
2. What experiences have defined this understanding?
3. Where have you seen grace in the reconciliation journey?
4. How would you invite other people into understanding reconciliation?
5. Why is reconciliation important to you?
Then we recorded his reflections.
******************************************************
Links from the episode:
Canada’s prisons are the ‘new residential schools’ by Nancy Macdonald, Feb 18, 2016
Mennonite Central Committee Saskatchewan
Reconcile: Everyday Conversations is a project of Mennonite Central Committee Saskatchewan aimed at facilitating conversations among settler/non-Indigenous Canadians around our role in reconciliation.
Project Coordinator: Heather Peters
Recording and Editing: Joel Kroeker
Music by A Northern Road to Glory