Healing and Justice

“an experience of justice is so basic that without it, healing may be well impossible.” Howard Zehr, "The Victim" in Changing Lenses

I realize that he said may be, but as defeatist (or escapist) as this may sound, I would claim that in a strictly world-as-it-is sense a state of true justice is difficult (impossible?) for humans to achieve on their own (It is here where we run into interesting contrasts between ‘experience of’ and ‘state of’ but alas). I will be honest in saying that this belief comes from my faith and the fact that I believe restoration to a state of true justice, in the universal sense, will be seen only after another act of God. This does not mean that I don’t think we should do all that we can work to provide for victim’s needs and to build up or fix situations so as to create space for as much experience of justice as possible here and now in anticipation of (and participation in) what is to come. Somehow still, I think healing is separate from justice, and needs to be so. Again, it sounds harsh, but ‘justice’ even in an isolated situation is often a human construct it seems, and I think it is important for victims not to connect their own healing with the things that others do. I should acknowledge that I haven’t experienced anything of the sort of crime discussed by Zehr so the above is said with a grain of salt.