Apologizing is not always enough. The desire to “re-pair” only heals fractures when it is deeply felt and authentic. If you want reparation, reflect on what you did and why. What was your part in the suffering that happened? If you can own up to that, then trust has to be built again. Trust in relationships is everything. Without it, we fight and slowly withdraw.
Forgiveness is popular these days: “Let’s forget about it and move on.” That’s typical of our sleek society, but it doesn’t sustain safety. The real fear of diving deeper into reparation is this: We don’t want to face our shame. How do you say you’re sorry and not also feel your ego crumble?
It’s like expecting a major fracture to just be wished away. A Band-Aid should do it, we hope. It sounds so tidy. Forgiveness can be a quick fix, a microwave invention. It might work in small matters, but, if we want real repair, it takes more work than that.
To feel what you made them feel – that’s harder to do. We dislike the vulnerability of an apology, we get scared that person will gang up more on us. It’s an act of immense courage to apologize. Lasting repair insists on re-experiencing the awful act, cleaning the cut over and over again. But, that’s how a wound heals, we air it and care for it.
Valuing reparation needs to come to the forefront of society. Not just a little ritual, where we stare at a memorial site and say a prayer for all the races, animals, earth and more that suffered at our hands.
Marianne Williamson wrote recently, “Reporters should be asking Trump and other government officials every single day about the brutality of the ICE raids, the cruelty at the detainment centers, and how the US government is disappearing people.”
The fact that this horror continues, unabated and increasingly funded, is a stain on this country I don’t know that we will ever wash off. How many thousands of traumatized children go to sleep every night afraid that mommy or daddy will be taken away the next day? How many people with legal permits are afraid to go to work because they know their permits will not protect them from our American Gestapo? How many good people are afraid to even go to the grocery store to buy food to feed their families, so afraid they are of being taken?
“They’re only taking violent criminals,” my ass. This is reminiscent not only of the darkest chapters in our own history, but of some of the darkest chapters in the history of the world. The level of terror we are inflicting on masses of innocent people is sheer unadulterated evil.
Anger is important, it helps us speak up. In her memoir, “Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered,” Ruth Kluger wrote, “I perceived resentment as an appropriate feeling for an injustice that can never be atoned for.” Sometimes the scar needs to remain a stain. It reminds us never to allow or enable these acts again.
Still, the cycle of rage needs repair if we are ever to change the world. Transformation arrives with responsibility through action. When I work with couples and families struggling with tribulations and trauma, I have to keep reminding them to listen to each other closely, though it may be hard. This witnessing is half the healing.
In her book, “A Politics of Love,” Marianne Williamson writes, “Our current racial dramas have their roots hundreds of years ago, and nothing less than pulling out those roots will heal the situation today. America needs to reconcile with our racial history – seeking genuine atonement and making meaningful amends.”
Repair is real, it takes a genuine desire to re-create something good from what was broken. We are moving into election season and daylight darkening. It’s a good time to find a way to help the community. Call a long-lost friend, or The Boys and Girls Club (707.938.8544); or In Defense of Animals (415.448.0048); or Pets Lifeline (707.996.4577); or CASA (707.565.6375); or, for the welfare of children, call La Luz (707.938.5131); or Maura, at Catholic Charities (707.528.8712); or make policy requests to Senator Adam Schiff (415.393.0707). Follow your own path for reparative action; we can move forward toward peace.
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