海角大神

Reparations is a big word, 11 letters. Too long, I was told, to fit in this week鈥檚 crossword puzzle. But the shorter word it comes from 鈥� repair 鈥� strikes me as even bigger.聽

As a noun, reparations suggests that a decision has been reached about concrete actions to redress past wrongs. Some see money and real estate, for example, as suitable reparations for slavery and redlining.

As a verb, however, repair is a process. That鈥檚 where the hard work happens to restore, renew, make whole. But history is history. We can鈥檛 go back and undo the horrors of the middle passage or the sundering of families at slave auctions.聽

What restoration is possible centuries later?

A first step can be looking back and taking an honest accounting of the past.

That鈥檚 what researchers with the Slavery, History, Memory and Reconciliation Project began doing in 2016. Working primarily with Saint Louis University, they pore over documents to piece together the lives of those enslaved by Jesuits at the school. Then, project members reach out to descendants to share what they have learned.聽

Initially, that sharing takes place in private, since many descendants are 鈥渕eeting鈥� their ancestors for the first time.聽

But with the descendants鈥� permission, the stories of those enslaved are then shared publicly. I鈥檓 grateful for that. Secrecy doesn鈥檛 do much to right past wrongs.聽

Yet no amount of looking back 鈥� however painstaking and apologetic 鈥� can recompense historical harms. We have to move forward, somehow.

To try to understand what might promote that, I turned to the world鈥檚 most-read book, the Bible. This phrase in Isaiah 58 piqued my interest: 鈥渞epairer of the breach.鈥�

Here, the repairer isn鈥檛 a carpenter or mason but a caring community. That鈥檚 the ideal anyway. People feed the hungry, free the oppressed, undo heavy burdens. And behind those good actions, Isaiah indicates, are good attitudes 鈥� compassion and humility. Treating people well comes with thinking of them that way.聽

Having achieved this, the entire community experiences abundance, 鈥渓ike a spring of water, whose waters fail not.鈥澛營t earns the name 鈥渞epairer of the breach鈥� and can 鈥渂uild the old waste places.鈥�

I was relieved to see the importance of community articulated, even if only聽as a goal. If today鈥檚 debate over reparations builds community, that sounds like progress to me, whatever decision is reached.聽

It takes togetherness, Isaiah suggests, to repair the past 鈥� and build a future.

These elements pervade our special series on reparations, which launched in the聽June 16 issue of the Monitor Weekly magazine聽and聽 will continue in the weeks and months ahead. In St. Louis, descendants of enslaved people look back with mixed emotions. In Barbados, a growing sense of unity fortifies the nation鈥檚 independence. And in California, members of the Reparations Task Force make recommendations for the future.聽

Building community is hard work, but it might be the fulcrum that lets us balance looking back and moving forward.

This story was produced as part of a special Monitor series exploring the reparations debate, in the United States and around the world.聽Explore more.