Reconciliation Day

An Invitation to Make Amends

By Marielena Zuniga

reconciliation: to re-establish friendship;

to settle or resolve a dispute;

to bring one's self to accept.

When Naney Linxwiler was fifteen years old, her father molested her. The event left her scarred and angry. She asked herself how she could forgive him, much less reconcile what had happened to her. Many times she took steps toward reconciliation, only to find more layers she needed to heal.

Linxwiler's pain survived her father's death. While not condoning his behavior, she recalled her father as a man who she once had looked up to, a man who inspired her to stand on her own two feet. "He had brought me great pain, but also great strength," she says.

She chose to be a pallbearer at his funeral. "It was a way I could express honor for his life and his personal struggles and was an outward act of forgiveness, or at least the beginning of it," she says.

Today, the forty-five-year-old Indianapolis woman continues on her journey of reconciliation. She feels blessed and celebrates the moments when the pain and fear have lifted from her heart, body and soul.

"Each time you take a step to get to the other side, you feel lighter," she shares.

To hear Nancy Linxwiler speak-as well as Christine Lemley and Lila Pagni-is to be caught up in their passion for the need for reconciliation in to day's world. While connected to forgiveness, reconciliation is much different, they say. And while both are needed, reconciliation is a first step, one that Lemley and Pagni and other members of the Interfaith Forum Columbus (IFFC), Indiana, hope people will take each year on Reconciliation Day, October 4.

In 2006, members of the IFFC organized and spearheaded the first annual Reconciliation Day in Indiana. On a personal level, the interfaith and intercultural day is a time to make amends, and show appreciation for family, friends and acquaintances. On a broader scale, the day is an opportunity to build bridges between people divided by hatred and ignorance.

Lemley, an interreligious spiritual director says, "It's a day for people and for nations to consider reconciliation instead of mutual destruction. It is a day to initiate personal peace over anger, grudges and judgment."

Their dream is far-reaching---that the idea and practice of Reconciliation Day will spread nationally, and eventually internationally. "We want to take this far, far beyond our community," says Pagni, a licensed clinical social worker in Columbus. "This is a day to do something tangible to re-establish friendships or resolve disputes:'

For Linxwiler, Reconciliation Day offered the opening to reconcile her hurtful experiences with her father. It's already brought her exactly what she needed on many levels. "Reconciliation is a gift that keeps on giving," she says.

From India to Indiana

The idea for a Reconciliation Day found its way from India to Indiana through Lemley, Pagni and Dan Enslow, IFFC delegates to the 2005 Goldin Institute for International Partnership and Peace Conference in Amritsar. India.

The IFFC delegates were among those from twenty-two countries and cities bringing information about existing projects in their communities related to the conference's topic of "Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation."

"The Goldin Institute felt that people needed to come together as partners and partner cities more frequently," Pagni explains. "So they began annual conferences based on one topic where people from around the world could come together and share what their communities were doing." As they listened to delegates from other countries discuss ideas and best practices around the conference's theme, the IFFC representatives were especially impressed by concepts brought to the table by representatives from Bogota, Colombia.

That city had initiated the celebration of "Sister Moon, Brother Sun Day," on October 4, the feast St. Francis, as a time for restoring and healing wounded relationships, Pagni explains.

The Bogota group shared the importance of designating a day to take reconciliatory action within families, or in other kinds of estranged relationships where reaching out to another could be a first step toward understanding, Lemley shares.

Pagni adds, "The people of Colombia have had to deal with staggering issues in their country~-drug trade, guerrilla armies, poverty. They wanted to bring families and people with differences together. So they chose St. Francis Day as a 'touchstone' day when people could begin to reconcile differences and live more peacefully."

The concept seemed so doable that the IFFC delegates felt they could bring it back to Indiana and initiate it in their own communities. "I was excited because it sounded so simple," Pagni "It was something to which you could say 'yes' and we really thought the people of Columbus might grab on to the idea and agree.”

Lemley adds, "St. Francis is a universal archetype for relationships and peace. It would be an easy connection to make, and we chose to call it Reconciliation Day.

Reconciliation and Forgiveness

But what exactly is reconciliation? Is it the same as forgiveness? And why is it important, personally and globally? The word itself has inspired much dialogue, Pagni says. So she herself had to look up the word in the dictionary. The definition read: To re-establish friendship; to settle or resolve a dispute; to bring one's self to accept.

"We know that in bookkeeping that when you reconcile, you're bringing things into balance and harmony," she says. "So when you begin to look at reconciliation and forgiveness, they are interconnected. Forgiveness is defined as: to excuse for a fault or offense. Certainly reconciliation can move toward forgiveness and forgiveness toward reconciliation. There's an intertwining there, but also a distinction. I can reconcile what has occurred in my life and not forgive the behavior."

"Reconciliation is simply opening the door," Lemley says. "It's making the first move, reaching out to someone. You realize there is pain and suffering between the two of you, or a group of people, and you make that first step."

She offers a personal story. Not hearing from an estranged brother in years, Lemley kept sending him postcards, letting him know that he was cared about and loved. She heard nothing in turn, but persisted. One day he finally sent her a note, acknowledging the postcards, and included his phone number and e-mail.

Lemley picked up the phone right away. They talked. A gay man, her brother had been concerned that she and other family members would not accept him. As they spoke, he said he never knew reconnecting would be so easy. They are back in each others' lives and now keep in close touch.

The benefits of such reconciliation are many. "We feel wholeness and that our lives are in balance, and our lives have everything to do with relationships," Lemley says. "We're part of this extraordinary life network and when part of that network is broken, we feel it and others feel it. When we are in balance and feel whole, we then affect everyone around us in positive ways."

For Pagni, the benefits also are about plugging into happiness and joy. It allows grace to enter, she says. "On a global level, when we reconcile we experience greater joy and we utilize all the resources that benefit everyone."

The First Reconciliation Day

When the three IFFC delegates returned from India to Columbus, they were excited, proposing the idea of a Reconciliation Day to Mayor Fred Armstrong. He liked the concept and proclaimed October 4, 2006, as the first annual Reconciliation Day in Columbus-a day to make amends and seek harmony. As a result, Indiana mayors in six other cities also declared the date to be Reconciliation Day.

The proverbial "idea whose time had come," Reconciliation Day was promoted through newspaper articles, radio talk shows and a PBS documentary. It 'was encouraged as a day for people of all traditions to work on resolving conflicts or issues that have kept them separate from others. In addition to a day for repairing relationships, it was also a time to show appreciation for family, friends and acquaintances.

Groups came up with their own ideas to mark the day, Pagni says. The IFFC held a rneeting to discuss issues of reconciliation from personal perspectives, as well as issues affecting their communities and the world. Mayor Armstrong himself sent four personal letters of reconciliation. Other politicians also entered the spirit of reconciliation, with candidates in Jennings County, Indiana, agreeing "to take dirty, personal attacks out of politics."

In addition, the Sisters of St. Francis of Oldenburg, Indiana, offered free showings of An Inconvenient Truth,that included community dialogue about humankind's need for reconciliation with the Earth. The First United Methodist Church conducted a bell-ringing ceremony at noon and a prayer emphasizing a call to action. Numerous pastors spoke about reconciliation in their sermons the Sunday prior to the day and challenged parishioners to take suggested actions. Rev. Mark Teike, pastor of St. Peter's Lutheran Church in Columbus, said in the PBS documentary, that reconciliation is the right thing to do. "None of us wants to be at odds or in conflict with others. If people have a sense of division with loved ones or family members, they might at least make some attempt for communication with them, to touch base with them. For someone else, the event may be marked by meeting with somebody in his community or having lunch with somebody who is different from them."

Step One

While Reconciliation Day in Indiana was a success, taking that first step toward reconciliation can be difficult for many people. Some fear cultures and faiths that are different from their own, so education and communication are critical, say Pagni and Lemley.

One of the purposes of the IFFC is to bring people of all different faith backgrounds together in dialogue, education and celebration of diversity. "Dialogue is an essential process to eradicate some of the fears and anxieties of people being different from ourselves," Lemley says. "It's about inclusivity. That's the essential element in understanding 'the other.'''

People also need to understand that differences can be good, Pagni adds. As a social worker, she has an ethical value that allows for a client's self-determination, unless that client is in danger of harming herself or himself or another.

"But it's often hard to bring that message to the world at large-that even though I may not agree with your spiritual beliefs, or your lifestyle decisions, you have your right to them. And I would appreciate you not putting your values on me as well."

Fear comes through the unknown, Lemley agrees. And it's only in engagement with others through dialogue, or awareness by contact with others, that we become more comfortable, she says.

"The challenges to reconciliation are based in fear and anxiety," she adds. "The brother I connected with had been afraid of what conversations might take place, how he might be judged by family members. Often we make reconciliation more complex and difficult than it really is, but it does take courage to reach out. That's the purpose of having a touchstone day, of having an observance ... that if we're estranged from someone, we can take that first step. I'm thinking about St. Francis who preached that peace begins within ourselves."

Some of those first steps might be sending an e-mail or letter, sending a bouquet of flowers, stopping by with some bread or a bottle of wine. Those are outward actions. But reconciliation first starts as an inner process, Lemley believes.

"There is a deep inner knowing that nudges our interior self," she says. "Some people may call it intuition, others may call it 'doing what's right.' But it's learning to pay attention to that indwelling voice, trusting it, even when we have cowardly feelings about taking action. Listening to that inner voice gives the impetus to make a move to reach out for reconciliation. It is that deep knowing that generates the first step in the journey toward reconciliation."

Moving Reconciliation into Consciousness

Today, the IFFC and others are spreading the concept of Reconciliation Day, hoping to build on the idea brought to the Goldin Institute from the Bogota delegates. They realize the seeds will take time to germinate and grow. But they are patient.

"There are so many broken and wounded aspects in our world. It's time for us to move the healing concept of reconciliation into human consciousness," Lemley says.

Observing a Reconciliation Day, communities and groups can organize whatever activities they'd like, Pagni adds. "It doesn't have to be a specific process. They can choose to have community dialogues or spiritual services-whatever they want. This year, Reconciliation Day preparations are to engage as many cities in the Midwest as possible with the intention of generating interest to radiate across the country, the whole of America."

Ultimately, IFFC members hope that reconciliation goes beyond a single day of observance-that the thought, heart and spirit of reconciliation begin to happen in the world every day. Pagni offers: "As we move to reconcile smaller problems, perhaps larger ones can also be resolved." 

For more information about Reconciliation Day or the Interfaith Forum Columbus, visit www.reconciliationday. net.

Science of Mind, September 2007© Reprinted with permission.

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