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I have spent this whole week wondering if I really have a clear understanding of what it is to repair–repair relationships with others, my relationship with myself and my body, relationship with creation. I grew up with the kind of forgiveness that you say you’re sorry and hug, then go on your way because everything is fixed, just like that. And you then have 2 options: One is to bury that seed of resentment and anger hoping it won’t grow… but it will; or you learn to let it go, forgive quickly and completely because that is what is expected of you. I’ve done both over the years.

Cole Arthur Riley writes, “ What do you do once the curse is lifted but the damage is untouched? When justice is had and the swords are beaten into plowshares but everyone’s wounds are still bleeding in the open, what then?” 136. It made me wonder if we aren’t all just bleeding all over each other from a thousand cuts we’ve never tended.

Because saying you’re sorry is easy, meaning it is a little harder, repair takes work. Cole goes on to write: “Repair–truth-telling, reparations, healing, reconciliation–these are what breath new life into us.” p. 136

Can you look fully at the wrong you have done or been complaisant in and name it, particularly to the ones you have harmed? Can you see the harm that was caused and acknowledge it? know your part? I think sometimes, even as adults, it’s easier to turn away from the harm we cause, to defend our actions, just ignore it. To live with the truth, to name it and sit in it, that is a difficult thing to do. It’s good for our empathy, good for our souls, good for our moral compass.

Reparations can be a… divisive word, as it’s most often used to discuss payment for historic wrongs. But, it is part of the process of repair. “To expect repair without some kind of remittance would be injustice doubled. What has been stolen must be returned. This is not vengeance, it’s restoration.” 138. An eye for an eye wasn’t really about body parts. It was usually about livestock, resources, belongings. If you kill my goat, you should have to give me a goat as reparation, to set the world right, to set us right.

When it comes to forgiveness, many people turn to the teachings of His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. How can anyone be so full of forgiveness when he has was violently evicted from his homeland, never to return? When the living conditions of those who were left behind are miserable? How can he have forgiveness for the people who would do such things? And yet, he says he does. He said, “We mentally give forgiveness to the Chinese. That means we try not to keep negative feelings toward them because of their wrong deeds. But that does not mean we accept it, what they have done. So we have little forgiveness against them, as far as their action is concerned. Forgiveness means not to forget what they have done. But forgiveness means do not keep your negative feeling toward them. As far as their action is concerned, you use your intelligence. You totally have to take countermeasures, but without negative feeling.”

We can forgive for ourselves, while still holding each other accountable. We can forgive and still have boundaries. And we can forgive and reconcile. Sometimes it takes time. It can’t be forced, even as a parent with bickering kids. I was taught that as part of the Jewish high holy days, between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, are days of penitence. In those 10 days you apologize, try to set right, and forgive. If you killed my goat, perhaps you would come to me during those holy days and seek forgiveness. And maybe this is not the year. Maybe this year I can’t forgive you, but maybe next year. Forgiveness and reconciliation sometimes take time. Because it’s not usually about a goat but about old wounds, abuses, violations, broken trusts. But sometimes, someday, even if there is no physical reconciliation, there is forgiveness, even for our own well being.

Because repair is about healing–healing between us and healing within us. Cole writes often about her own body and her chronic illness. She discovered the anger she had toward her body, the vitriol and hatred that it was full of pain and could not support her and was horrified–also realizing that her body is doing the best it can to survive. So, like we do each week, she offered confession and passed the peace over each part of her body–her toes and feet, her wrists and elbows, her eyes and nose.

She still has her illness. She didn’t instantly get up and feel better that day. She did heal something in her. She healed the relationship she has with her body, at least in that moment. As she says, “We have to pause and bandage ourselves up habitually.”

In that healing, in that repair, even with the scars and the bandages, and even knowing that we will need to go through this process again with each other, with ourselves, there can be joy.

Sojourner Truth said, “Life is a hard battle anyway. If we laugh and sing a little as we fight the good fight of freedom, it makes it all go easier.” Our life battles and her life battles were not the same. That doesn’t make yours any less real. Can we find moments of joy and laughter anyway?

We talked a bit about joy earlier in the summer. We know we can find joy, that it’s different and deeper than happiness. That there is joy even in the difficult times, is why we can maybe rejoice always and not assume that means we’re suppose to be toxically happy or in denial of reality.

There are those who know that joy and hard times go together. They’re children. They can play all day and know that there will be a dreaded bath at the end of it, then a story, then sleep which is kinda like dying so that’s not great either. But that doesn’t stop the playing.

As we grow we often lose our capacity to play. My least favorite thing about being involved in youth ministries were the games. Like, as the leader, I had to race another leader on putting on a frozen t shirt. I hate that stuff. It seems… mostly annoying. I think sometimes I’m too serious to play. And then there are time when we have bubbles during service and sing musical songs on a Sunday morning and make crafts. It’s a mixed bag.

Cole writes about the first part: “There are those of us who are such serious people that to be playful feels foolish, and maybe it is. But I think when we give ourselves to play, the scope of ours lives expands. We become freer in our bodies. We give ourselves to imagination and make-believe. This takes down our defenses and allows us to move and be without expectation of immediate tragedy. After all, it is only in anticipation of sorrow that joy seems frivolous.” p. 160

Brene Brown writes about that last bit. That sometimes we are so afraid of joy, like we don’t deserve it, foreboding joy: “When we lose our tolerance for vulnerability, joy becomes foreboding. No emotion is more frightening than joy, because we believe if we allow ourselves to feel joy, we are inviting disaster. We start dress-rehearsing tragedy in the best moments of our lives in order to stop vulnerability from beating us to the punch. We are terrified of being blindsided by pain, so we practice tragedy and trauma. But there is a huge cost. When we push away joy, we squander the goodness that we need to build resilience, strength, and courage.”

I think healing ourselves, our relationship with ourselves, with our inner child, with others makes us more open to joy. I think being open to joy and beauty and play reminds us that there is good even in the times when it is difficult to forgive, when the wounds seem like they are beyond healing, joy reminds us that even then, there is life and laughter.

I wonder what it would be like to be open to play. To joke and laugh and giggle and tell stories and dance and sing and celebrate and rejoice. To confess and forgive, to make amends and heal, to be living in the struggle and living in joy.

Cole ends her letter on joy in Black Liturgies like this:

“I’m writing to let you know that you are more than your pain. That you can feel deeply without being consumed. For you, I want laughter. And if you cannot locate your laughter, may you find some dispensation of comfort. I need you to survive this terrible beautiful place. Sorrow alone will starve you.

“Your joy doesn’t need to look like mine, but what is tethering you to the beautiful? You’ve seen the fires burning, stared down the dragon’s gaping mouth. Tell me, what is keeping you here? Steadying your breath in weary places? This resistance, this entrance to a world of our own remaking–if you’re suspended in the tension, who says you can’t make music?” p 164 Black Liturgies