War and Reconciliation in 2020

--- Dachau Memorial Sculpture 1968

It starts in the family and spreads to all humanity. After Mercy and Forgiveness, Reconciliation is the next necessary step to 2020 A Year Without War. Part religious sacrament, part family legacy, part civic virtue, reconciliation is our conscious choice to actively “…forgive those who trespass against us”.

But it can’t merely be a mental attitude. Actions are required to restore peace and harmony between divided peoples. The ‘Prodigal Son’ parable is the most famous religious context where father and son are reconciled over the objection of other relatives. Famously depicted in art, sculpture even parks, numerous acts of reconciliation have guided human history away from feuding families to warring nations. Here are just a few over the centuries

c.1510 - Il Figlio Prodigo / The Prodigal Son, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (Netherlands). By Hieronymus Bosch [c1450-1516].

1855 - The Reconciliation of Montagues and Capulets(Over the Dead Bodies of Romeo and Juliet), Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut (USA). By Frederic Lord Leighton [1830 – 1896].

1892 -79th New York Infantry Monument, 17th Street, Fort Sanders, Knoxville, Tennessee (USA). At Masonic Hall. Memorializes Battle of Fort Sanders. Also depicts soldiers from North & South shaking hands. Is there any connection to them of the far larger monument at Lookout Mountain? Inscription: "The hands that once were raised in strife / Now clasp a brother's hand. / And long as flows the tide of life - / In peace, in toil, when war is rife - / we shall as brothers stand. / One heart one soul for our free land. / J.J.C. Clarke."

May 28, 1933 - Hungary Mourns Her Lost Children,"Debrecen (Hungary). "In an act of reconciliation, the statue was carved by French sculptor Emile Guillaume [1867-1942] and offered to Debrecen by British Viscount Lord Rothermere." Guillaume also sculpted La Délivrance (qv).

1987 - Reconciliation Park, Mankato, Minnesota (USA). Relations between the Dakota & non-Dakota people of the area were strained for decades after the US-Dakota War, particularly the hanging of the 38 Dakota. In 1980 the City of Mankato presented the Dakota people with a park. In 1987, the 125th anniversary of the execution, Minnesota's Governor declared a Year of Reconciliation. The City of Mankato commissioned local artist Tom Miller to create the statue ‘Winter Warrior' that stands at the site of the execution, next to the Mankato Public Library. In 1992 the City of Mankato purchased the site of the execution and named it Reconciliation Park. People from the Mankato community worked with Dakota people to raise funds for a statue of a white buffalo at the park. People gather there every December 26th, the anniversary of the execution, in prayer and remembrance.

1992 - "Reconciliation/Hands Across the Divide" Statue, west end of Craigavon Bridge, Londonderry (Northern Ireland). Produced by Maurice Harron. An image of the statue illustrates the website and brochures of the "Ulster Project" in Oak Ridge, Tennessee (USA).

2001 - Kentucky Memorial, Kentucky Avenue, Vicksburg, Mississippi (USA). "Soldiers from Kentucky fought on both sides of the Battle. The Memorial is a statue of Presidents Lincoln and Davis (both Kentucky natives) with words from both of them calling for reconciliation between the North and South. At the start of the war Kentucky declared itself to be Neutral and only sided with Union after a Confederate invasion. Even so, the Confederacy still had support there and was able to recruit soldiers both then and during a later invasion in 1862."

2005 - "Reconciliation: The Parable of the Prodigal Son," Duke Divinity School, Durham, North Carolina (USA). By Margaret Adams Parker. See Luke 15:11-32. "Everyday on the terrace of the beautiful new addition Duke Divinity School added in 2000 I walk by a stunning sculpture titled 'Reconciliation.' Made by the North Carolina artist Margaret Adams Parker, the sculpture tells the Luke 15 Prodigal Son story. But what Parker captures is a deeper story of a Forgiving Father & Two Lost Sons, powerfully capturing both reconciliation resisted & embraced.

And probably the most famous reconciliation sculpture in modern times site at the bombed out, never restored Coventry Cathedral.

1995 -Coventry Cathedral, Coventry (England).

(above images, references courtesy of http://peace.maripo.com/p_reconciliation.htm )

Mandela, Lincoln, Collins, Gandhi, King are names that spring to mind when reconciliation heroes are discussed. Lesser is a man history almost forgot, Bayard Rustin;

Bayard Rustin: Blac and openly gay in a homophobic era, Bayard Rustin was a tireless activist. Although a Pennsylvania native, Rustin, who was also a Quaker, flourished in Harlem, joining the national effort to free the Scottsboro boys as well as contributing to early Communist efforts to end racism. Working with A. Philip Randolph, the legendary labor and civil rights leader, Rustin was part of the original March on Washington, proposed first in 1941 and was the main organizer of the historic 1963 march. Rustin participated in the 1947 Freedom Rides organized by the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Traveling to India in 1948, Rustin, who studied with Gandhi’s disciples and was a critical advisor during the Montgomery Bus Boycott, is credited for fully converting Dr. King to nonviolent direct action. (source: thegrio.com)

Reconciliation as a sacrament is actually penance fulfilled not only to God for sins committed but also to the community who were '...trespassed against'. This second understanding is not widely remembered in our postmodern conceptual schemes.

Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1422 "Those who approach the sacrament of Penance (Reconciliation) obtain pardon from God's mercy for the offense committed against him, and are, at the same time, reconciled with the Church which they have wounded by their sins and which by charity, by example, and by prayer labors for their conversion."

Reconciliation, both as a sacrament and a civic virtue, is politically non-partisan. In the Middle East struggle alone presidents of both American political parties have brokered incremental reconciliations starting with The Camp David Peace Accords. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and U.S. President Jimmy Carter signed the Camp David Accords on September 17, 1978 in Washington, DC.

On June 12, 1987 "Tear down this wall!" was the challenge issued by United States President Ronald Reagan to Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev to destroy the Berlin Wall.

Reconciliation is progressive only if it becomes a habit. It cannot become a habit in a world of relative morals or cultural excuses for barbarism, murder, rape and infanticide. “We are floundering to find our moral compass” my colleague, Matthew Bixby, sighed as I previewed this post with him. When reconciliation does not lead to acceptance, then acceptance cannot lead to 2020 A Year Without War. Acceptance will be examined here next week.

___________________________________