The Talking Circle

The Talking Circle was honored to sit down with Rashawn again. Rashawn joined us back when the podcast first started. It was good to sit down with Rashawn, who works with Native Intervasity, and hear about his time with the LiSteN '25.

LiSteN is a project Rashawn has worked with for a while, and he takes a group of students, mostly college students, to the Navajo Reservation, to "listen" to the people.

To learn more about Native Intervarsity or if you would like to support Rashawn, you can click here: https://library.intervarsity.org/library/native-intervarsity

Today, we give a quick update on the incident at the Door Christian Fellowship in Gallup, NM. The article we reference can be found here: https://navajotimes.com/reznews/protest-underway-in-gallup-over-video-mocking-dine-culture

We also discuss how people tend to view the Church. Is it a place to have difficult discussions, or a place to avoid due to their lack of acknowledging past wrongdoings?

In June 2025, The Door Christian Fellowship Church put on a skit depicting a man in hell facing charges for his crimes. Skits like these are often used as a gospel outreach, but this church used elements from their neighboring nation, the Navajo.

The man who was depicted going to hell was a Navajo medicine man. This upset many Navajo people who only knew about this skit because it made its way onto social media. Shortly after, many came out to the church in Gallup in protest.

Join us as Bobby and I, seasoned missionaries, discuss the incident at the Door Christian Fellowship Church. There is also a special guest for this episode, Jacy Begay, and she is my niece.

The conversation of education among Indigenous communities often includes remembering and thinking about boarding schools. Residential boarding schools, both on and off the reservation, were supposed to solve the "Indian Problem."

Instead, it traumatized several generations of Indigenous peoples who passed down much of that trauma to the following generations.

Our ancestors who went to these boarding schools are called survivors, and not graduates, because of the abuse most of them experienced. Not every boarding school was bad, and not every student was abused, but this was a horrendous experiment in American history. The Talking Circle interviewed Susie Silversmith, a boarding school survivor, on episode 7 a while back.

In today's episode, we sit down with Sylvia again, and she gives us a recipe for cooking salmon. We also discuss Sylvia's work with Nations and the summer mission teams that have come to her community during the summer.

The Talking Circle welcomes Sylvia Shaquanie to the table to talk about her community, Keex' Kwaan, or as it is known on the map, Kake, Alaska.

Sylvia is Tlingit, has two children, Kassandra and Kenny, and works at the Kake City School District. Sylvia has also directed several iterations of college students who come to her community under the Nations group.

Sylvia says the summers in Kake are great. She enjoys subsistence living (living off the land), cruising in my Subaru, and watching beautiful sunrises and sunsets. Sylvia and her family enjoy going to Long Beach for picnics, making s'mores, fishing, and the 4th of July.

An emcee at a powwow once told a joke that reflected the reality of growing older. He said people often ask what the difference between an old person and an elder is. He went on to say that an old person is grumpy all the time and has nothing to teach, while an elder is grumpy all the time but has something to teach.

We cannot avoid growing older, but we can choose to grow old in a good way. On today's episode, the hosts share their highs and lows of growing older. Most of us will eventually need readers. Others will have to make the biggest decision of their life and choose to go all natural with grey hair or find a way to hide it. Growing old in a good way begins with caring for our whole selves–mind, body, emotions, and spirit.

Men do in fact have feelings. We don't always express them to others, even towards our significant other. Why? We don't always know the feelings or how to describe them. Thankfully we have the Feelings Wheel (look up on Google) to help us decipher the feelings we may be experiencing.

Also, an article written by Peter Wright suggests men don't talk about their feelings because we tend to regulate our emotions through actions rather than words (https://shorturl.at/XP2bp). Perhaps this is why men have so many hobbies, it is a place where we can share our feelings and emotions.

On today's episode, Renee talks about contributing to a chapter in a book called Voices of Lament: Reflections on Brokenness and Hope in a World Longing for Justice.

https://www.amazon.com/Voices-Lament-Reflections-Brokenness-Longing/dp/0800740904

Renee's chapter is titled Live in a Good Way. Our discussion comes from the questions Renee asks in her chapter. What does an upright community do every morning? How do they wake up? How do they set their intentions for the day? What are the activities that motivate them toward peace and good living among one another?

Renee's hope was her chapter would remind people that living in a good way is a conversation and not a debate over who is right in how they live. That creates divisiveness instead of celebrating our uniqueness and similarities in how we and our communities seek to live in a good way.

Do you ever feel insecure? If so, how do you deal with those insecurities? Do you internalize them and never speak about them or try to find confirmation about those insecurities from other people?

On today's episode, Renee shares one of her insecurities, her speaking abilities. Renee shares how easy it is for her to judge her voice, yet has grace on other people and their insecurities. Despite Renee's insecurities about her speaking ability, she leads today's conversation like a pro.

Today's episode is about embracing who we are. Don't be shy to talk about your insecurities.