Reconstruction after Reconciliation

The past century hosted WW1, the Great Depression and WW2. European arrivals, economic, religious and political changes influenced the nature of the Aboriginal groups that inhabited Canada for the millennium. Many Aboriginal people acknowledge gains where the children back then received schooling and education needed in a competitive and changing world.

Churches committed moral and ethical wrongdoing by removing and abusing Aboriginal children against the villages' wishes. We cannot undo the past. Losses are known to incite the grieving process, whether the process is incited by personal, interpersonal, intra-personal or cultural lapses and omissions.

The initial phase of grieving is often marked by disbelieve, anger, disgust and agitation. Externalizing traumatic events by blaming the instigator(s) and focusing on the cause of suffering are less threatening and provides the organism time to work on strategies of re-integrating. “We shall prepare the coffee of reconciliation through the filter of justice. Through reconciliation, streams of tears will come to our eyes.” Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

During this phase confusing, conflicting and uncomfortable feelings and thoughts may come to surface.  Fragmenting a troublesome environment into smaller workable pieces reduces the feeling of being overpowered.  

Extended situations that are clearly damaging and draining can prolong the first phases of the mourning as well as the perplexity of the affair.  When losses are inflicted on a community or culture in the whole, conflict arises where smaller groups or individual strategies might chose alternative ways to recover. After an earthquake some might feel the need to excavate, while reigning forces might decide on rebuilding the city on top of the buried.

Despite of the knowledge that one can loose everything due to forces of nature, economic meltdowns or warfare, most descendants will mourn their losses. This is a worldwide phenomenon where histories of explorers, kingdoms claiming land, warfare and prosecution of certain groups still happen in this century.   

However, one of the most damaging attitudes in the quest for healing is to hold onto the status of a victim, rightfully earned and sustained by the past. Staying a victim implies helplessness, feeling subdued and heavily relying on external resources to come to the rescue. 

During the process of mourning the healthy turning point happens when the organism(s) letting go of all that is not conductive and taking full responsibility for the self. If misinterpreted, taking responsibility for the self can cause extreme guilt, self-blame or acts of self-destruction.  That goes for the church as well as Aboriginal people. Power means the organism’s ability to recognize own strengths and enhancing the capacity thereof. Healing includes expansion of consciousness and detachment from the situational and emotional roller coaster. “We are in the world, but not of the world.”

Whether this is applicable to a culture, nation, and group or individual, the purpose of the mourning process is amongst others to establish a new identity.

Participants of the reconciliation process can uphold each other without imposing their beliefs on the minority. Empathy is to recognize and validate hurt, thus walking alongside, without nurturing the victim.  

“Amnesty is as good for those who give it as for those who receive it. It has the admirable quality of bestowing mercy on both sides.” Victor Hugo.

Pathological grievers get stuck in the unfortunate circumstances that initially triggered the mourning process. These organisms build their new identity around the loss and attempt to keep others hostage by their dwellings. Although they present them of being in need to be rescued, they dodge transfiguration.  

When surroundings inflict constant somberness and heaviness, the process of healing is violated by oppression.  The path of healing is painful, but can be embraced.  Healing involves expanded awareness and understanding of unrealistic fears and feelings of despair.

Organisms can create healthy I-boundaries by accepting the past and showing willingness to venture fresh takes in the present. Finding the balance is key to continue the process of reconstruction. This process reflects the unlimited possibilities to enhance the self in the remarkable universe in which the organisms find themselves. To be equal in our acceptance of our conciliatory mission is to know all is from God.

For most grievers the turning point includes a memory of the traumatic event, dismantled from believes that keep the past hurts alive.

The acceptance of loss is a part of life. When groups, couples or individuals consolidate they bring a different set of values, expectations or agreement to the table. The past misconceptions, carelessness and/or defective judgments are not the spokesperson any longer.

Working with the present can also be a painful event, where symptomatic relieve during loss can include criminal, violent and destructive behavior, substance abuse, broken relationships, indebtedness, neurotic patterns that are destructive on all levels of the organism’s mandatory.

After reconciliation reconstruction must follow. When the new identity is plagued by self-perpetuating pathology of joblessness, welfare dependency and crime the condition calls for furtherance – to change for the better, to improve the present time. 

Vibrant energy cores transparent love. Both the church and Aboriginal communities have to deal with current issues, instigating a solution to the problem as an onward and not a backward movement.