Al Owski’s Reviews > On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World > Status Update

“Nations can face the truth of what they have done even if the work is imperfect, messy, or haphazard—and can make the choice to write a new story for tomorrow. Repair is possible. Atonement is not out of reach. What is needed-and this is, of course, a great deal is the willingness to do the work. What is needed is the bravery to begin.”

“A ruler had a child who had gone astray on a journey of a hundred days. The child's friends said, "Return to your parent." The child said, "I cannot." Then the ruler sent a message to the child, saying, "Return as far as you can and I will come the rest of the way to you." In a similar way, God says, "Return to me and I will return to you." ”

“Nowadays, when someone confesses about their racist uncle or that time they said the n-word, I determine to offer a challenge toward transformation. For most confessions, this is as simple as asking, "So what are you going to do differently?" The question lifts the weight off my shoulders and forces the person to move forward, resisting the easy comfort of having spoken the confession.” (Austin Channing Brown)

“The work of repentance and the gift of receiving forgiveness are not the same. The work of repentance is demanded of every single one us for the harm we have caused or participated in, even if some accounts can never be closed. Having to live with that knowledge may, sometimes, just be one of the consequences of our actions.”

“Sometimes healing can come only by allowing oneself to not have to forgive, by understanding that there is no sin in not closing accounts with those who can never, ever repair the harm they have caused. Sometimes forgiveness comes after the permission to never forgive is finally granted. And sometimes forgiveness never comes. And that's OK too.”

“There should never be pressure on the victim to forgive. Ever.”

“As DeVega put it, "Forgiveness for racist violence is a given, an unearned expectation of White America." Our white supremacist society has conditioned itself to demand this forgiveness because it depends on it in order to proceed as it always has. … the families of those killed by police are "asked to grant forgiveness to someone who has not asked for it but [are] really being asked to absolve the system…"”

“This is where we often see forgiveness weaponized. In the wider secular culture, in Christian culture, and yes, even in Jewish culture where we use Maimonides and really should know better, there is often pressure on victims to forgive even when the perpetrator hasn't done all of the work, or even any work at all.”

“Much harm is caused when we regard others as objects, or in transactional ways, and forget to behold their full humanity—to see them as complete human beings whose concerns and feelings matter as much as our own. I believe that a true apology must be an interaction that honors the full humanity of the other; it is not transactional.”

“In the international human-rights context, it is the adults who recruit the young people into armed conflict who are to blame. It's not the young people themselves. And in international criminal law there's mostly a decision to not punish young people, even if they did really horrible things, and that's a very striking contrast to how the United States treats juvenile offenders.” (Martha Minow)