Show Notes
Stacey Swampy was born in Maskwacis, Alberta. When he was 13 years old, his father died and he entered, what would become, 30 years inside the system – moving from foster homes to group homes to the young offenders systems and finally to the provincial correctional centre and federal penitentiary. When Stacey realized that he might die within this system he decided it was time to make changes and turned to the Elders who worked there to help him. Since then Stacey has become sober, embraced Indigenous culture and practices, graduated with a university degree and has worked tirelessly to help people get out of the system. Stacey has worked for Str8Up, Micah Mission and is currently back at the Saskatoon Correctional Centre, this time working as an Elder.
In our conversation with Stacey he talked about the value of learning his own story and about the importance of forgiveness, and how it is an essential step for reconciliation to truly take place. He explains throughout his conversation with us that not only do we have to forgive those who have hurt us, but we must also forgive ourselves. Stacey puts reconciliation within a problem-solving framework. He explained how the teachings from the elders taught him to let go of all the negative energy he was holding onto and finally move forward in a positive and healthy direction. “The way reconciliation is, is we have to forgive each other before we can move on and start to heal. If we can’t forgive people, then we’re still stuck in a part of the problems not the solutions.”
Ben Borne and I invited Stacey to have a conversation around these five questions:
1. What is your personal understanding of reconciliation?
2. What experiences have led you to this understanding?
3. Why do you feel reconciliation is important?
4. Does forgiveness have a role in reconciliation? Why or why not?
5. How would you invite people into the reconciliation journey?
Then we recorded his reflections.
*****************************************************
Additional resources to explore:
Str8Up
Writing your Life Story
Teaching by the Medicine Wheel
Emotional Intelligence Toolkit
Mennonite Central Committee Saskatchewan
*****************************************************
Reconcile: Everyday Conversations is a project of Mennonite Central Committee Saskatchewan aimed at facilitating conversations among Canadians around our role in reconciliation. We thank Mennonite Church Saskatchewan for additional funding support.
Project Coordinator: Heather Peters
Co-host: Ben Borne
Recording and Editing: Matthew Hildebrandt
Music by Queen Queen Josephine
More from Reconcile. Everyday Conversations
“Action is the part I really focus on in my understanding (of reconciliation) because we can say a lot of things and people can come to a lot of discussion tables, but if you're not actually doing the stuff it is going to be forgotten.”
“I think now though, it's using my voice to create safe spaces, to have tough conversations, but have this conversations in a respectful and safe way. So we can … hear that before you get to reconciliation, you need to hear this ugly truth, right?”
“The chef coat that you see is actually modeled after the Turkish army. And I think there's a lot of a lot of rules and etiquette, and kitchen ways of being that are actually at odds with indigenous culture. So I'm trying to, I guess you could say decolonize that kitchen experience for people.”
In all my conversations with people about reconciliation I have heard that it isn’t an individual journey people are on. The reconciliation path is filled with relationships, teachers, learners and explorers – it is filled with other people. So we have created a reconciliation study guide that accompanies this podcast for you to be able to take to your friends, churches, communities, or neighbourhood book clubs to engage with these conversations together.
“You have to be open to it. You might not want to listen or hear what someone has to say that has a different belief system…. God calls us to love everyone, to listen to their stories. This is what have gotten me started and motivated.”