Maggie Hodgson - Speaking My Truth

up to come home for the ceremony. He had left a community that suffered
from huge amounts of addiction and came home to a community of people
who were largely sober and moving forward and were welcoming. They had
gone through a healing process of getting treatment for the majority of the
people abusing alcohol and drugs, gambling, and dealing with trauma long
before the residential school settlement was on the table. When the Elders
came into the hall for their welcome home ceremony, their grandchildren
were yelling, “Welcome home Grandma!” Welcome home Grandpa!”
“Welcome home Mom, Dad, and Uncle!” Tears were flowing down the faces
of the former students and family members. However, they understood that
the commemoration ceremony was not necessarily closure for many people. It
was one more step in the process leading toward balance.
This community had a public inquiry on residential schools. This was long
before the ADR process was fully developed. The community funded and
recorded its own “Public Inquiry” into residential schools. It was set up to
ensure that the old people’s experience would be recorded prior to their
death. This was the only community that chose to host its own inquiry with a
judge, a therapist/healer, and a respected leader in their region of Canada as
their commissioners. Ceremony was an intricate part of the inquiry.
A community-based justice process was initiated to address the
intergenerational impacts of community violence. Community-based
violence had never been dealt with because people did not want community
members to go to jail. A protocol was developed that had the support of the
attorney general, the RCMP, and the community. They provided therapy for
intergenerational sexual abuse after there was enough sobriety to deal with
living relationships. Some of their community members were charged with
sexual abuse, and the community supported them to get the therapy they
needed. Community members took responsibility for community change.
This process was underway long before residential school issues came
to the forefront. Ceremony and treatment were integral to the process of
community change. Activities expanded to include awareness of addiction to
gambling. They clearly understood that the key treatment issue for gamblers
is unresolved grief.
A number of victims and their extended families participated in a
reconciliation process with a priest who had abused them. They attended
a ceremony, which also dealt with all of the priest’s victims who had died.
They did this through a tobacco ceremony, pipe ceremony, and a sweat
lodge ceremony. The priest attended with his therapist and the former
students’ therapists. The process was ceremony from beginning to end
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