How could injustice be made right?
Thy Brother has arm'd himself in steel
To avenge the wrongs thy Children feel.
But vain the Sword and vain the Bow,
They never can work War's overthrow.
The Hermit's prayer and the Widow's tear
Alone can free the World from fear.
For a Tear is an intellectual thing,
And a Sigh is the sword of an Angel King,
And the bitter groan of the Martyr's woe
Is an arrow from the Almighty's bow.
from The Grey Monk, by William Blake
You see injustice. You can't make it better. And when you realize that, what do you say? You stand there, and maybe hug them, or hold their hand.
And that's for the simple stuff, the uncomplicated horrors of cancer or hurricanes or dementia. We could imagine those being made better, healed, undone. But what if someone wrongs another person, not on accident, but on purpose, cruelty only for the pleasure the cruelty provides them. What, on earth, do you do then?
In criminal situations, we imagine isolating people in prisons so that they might not repeat the bad thing. In civil contexts, we might imagine monetary penalties. These don't really make things right and we're supposed to pretend they do, but we all know they don't. How could they? The hurt can last years and years and years and hurting someone else more doesn't do anything about that. Even if you were healed, they got to hurt you and have that hurt haunt you for years and... then what? What could make that right?
No specific solution is offered in my religious tradition, although we're told to make peace with others, lest they ask for our punishment, and we be imprisoned until we can pay the very last penny of debt we owe (combining both imprisonment and monetary penalties was more common at the time). But we're also asked to forgive. How can you assure people justice will be done, but require they forgive others completely? Is their justice, then, doing nothing at all? What does it mean for things to be set right, if you've forgiven everything that went wrong?
Perhaps it means you forgive the people, and the hurt, the bad thing that's the relic of your hurt, that is... compensated for somehow. Not in an extractive penalty, but with kindness and comfort.
I don't know. But I think it's good we're told it will be handled, and asked to have faith that these issues will be sorted out. It's beyond my ability to find true justice, but I do all I can, and the rest can be handled by God. It's not obvious it's even possible in principle to make things right, but surely if we're healed, it'd get a whole lot easier, and so I try to hope.
If you need someone who understands, at least a little, I'm here.
A personal note #
One of the strangest hurts I've experienced was having many people I care about very deeply (including religious leadership) tell me I'd never receive the love I sought, that I would die alone, and not for a fault, but for my charity. Perhaps they were right -- it's easy to forgive, because I can't really blame anyone for being right, if it turns out they were. But, if I can't have a family, because of the kindnesses I've been encouraged to do in faith... that could be made better.
I've prayed that God assign to me the responsibility to take care of and delight someone (later, I realized I did not specify this should be a reciprocal relationship, which was horrifying, but a kind person would realize a woman praying the same thing would be a worthy recipient of my efforts, and it might be cruel to have me be a servant to more people who would be disgusted by me). Perhaps not in this life, but the next.
I'm moving to Philadelphia, PA, in order to settle my heart in Revelation 3:7-13. Even if I will never receive the love and family I've always dreamt of, I will at least not have the burden of thinking, "they learned from me to never give charitably in faith, for the sake of their own love" -- if they're made to acknowledge God loved me, then my failures will not doom them, and that alone is enough for me to rest.