Reparative Mercy
Part I: Ruminations & Intimate Lessons
I have a confession,
I don’t entirely know what reparative healing and justice look like in real time. Sure, there’s the psychology, the examples and methods.
Experiencing restoration within the self, even conflict resolution in a relationship are still quite different than within connections where there are massive wounds and abuses are at play. Not all relationships can support the process, sadly, most cannot.
Perhaps we’re all falling forward, struggling to face ourselves and each other in the rubble of our pain.
I sometimes think holding power and abuse accountable is the easy part.
Then again maybe it’s not, because we have to finally understand how we’ve been harmed or abused and then we must speak it.
Once we get angry enough, we can shout from the rooftops, we can protest, we can release the valve of pressure, we can create a call to action. We can rightly place the blame or the responsibility where it needs to be.
Responsibility, however, is not accountability.
Responsibility is the belief, that placement of fault.
Accountability is the action (with or without the offender’s reaction).
And true Reconciliation, well, that requires engagement.
For reconciliation to work it means, the wounded— must engage with the perpetration. It means the person of power or dominant offender — must engage with themselves and the wounded from humility and a willingness to step into reparation.
And then, it means, to find a way to level the playing field, step by step to see each other, to be willing to overcome “you vs. me” and transform it into “us against the struggle.”
It means an entirely different way of relating.
It means experiencing the anxiety, the ick, the ugh, the shaken disposition, the shattered pieces, all to see if a mosaic is possible.
It means radical acceptance, lowered expectations, hopes up and then dashed and then, hope again. It means work, facing the conflicts without going to war.
Or so I read, or so I might believe, or so I might be witnessing or so I might be experiencing.
You see, I don’t know, in real time (yet?).
There is so much pain inflicted in the world, so much exploited. Violence begets violence begets violence until we decide to stop it, until abusers, offenders and oppressors are either overthrown or decide to lay down their weapons (of every kind). Until the abused and oppressed find liberation and connection and don’t isolate away and receive those who would repair with them.
It’s all work. It’s exhausting. It’s not easy. It’s not fucking supposed to be.
And it’s so necessary.
Or a least that’s what I’ve read or might believe or might be witnessing or so I might be experiencing.
I don’t know in.real.time.
Repair, truth and reconciliation are nothing short of muddy waters. As the song says,
“I will ask you for mercy // I will come to you blind //
What you'll see is the worst me // Not the last of my kind” ~ (LP)
So are we not specimens trying to make sense of our stardust. It’s just — control is not what will save us. It is the act of surrender, to ourselves, to one another in Mercy.
There is nothing more sacred, to me, than becoming intimate with Mercy. Aye, we are at each other’s feet, laying bare the bones and wreckage of our being ~ with one another.
Ash Gallagher is a Veteran War Correspondent, Speaker, Poet, Author & Activist (Women have many hats). To get in touch, podcast with her or work with her, & find more information at ashgallagher.com
Muddy Waters, LP