Reconciliation

Spending any time at all with someone close to you that is in recovery can open your eyes to seeing life in a very different way. If you are unfamiliar with the 12-step program, I encourage you to take a look at it, have a conversation with someone who has experienced it and is comfortable talking to you. What you will learn right from the start is that it is not a simple task, it takes work, every day, and you need help from others to do it and a belief in a higher power. Many succeed with this hard work, and sadly, many have to try multiple times to keep going.

I was thinking about what reconciliation might mean in light of this program and so I asked when that might occur. In the 12-step program for recovery, reconciliation, or rather making amends occurs in step nine. That’s right, not until you are three-quarters of the way through can you begin to make amends. In fact, the work to get there starts somewhere around step four, where you begin to take inventory of yourself. As it was explained to me, you have to do a great deal of work on yourself before you can even begin to reconcile with others.

As I think about the work of the church around Truth and Reconciliation, I realize that we ourselves have had to do a great deal of work to even begin this step, and even then, the road is long. We are spending our 40-day Lenten journey focusing on Truth and Reconciliation, but it has taken us a very long time to get here. Like those who struggle through recovery, we cannot just decide to reconcile, we must take the steps before, take inventory of ourselves and continue the process that has begun before now. We cannot do this alone, God is with us on this road to reconciliation and we must continue the work, every day.