The Power of Reconciliation

 

I have been reading "John Adams" by David McCullough and I came across a powerful exchange between Adams and the King of England, the first time they met after the end of the Revolutionary War. Here is what Adams is recorded to have said, with great emotion:

"Sir, The United States of America have appointed me their Minister Plenipotentiary to your Majesty...It is in obedience to their express commands that I have the honor to assure your Majesty of their unanimous disposition and desire to cultivate the most friendly and liberal intercourse between your Majesty’s subjects and their citizens...The appointment of a Minister from the United States to your Majesty’s Court will form an epocha in the history of England and of America. I think myself more fortunate than all my fellow citizens in having the distinguished honor to be the first to stand in your Majesty’s royal presence in a diplomatic character; and I shall esteem myself the happiest of men if I can be instrumental in recommending my country more and more to your Majesty’s royal benevolence...I beg your Majesty’s permission to add, that although I have sometimes before been entrusted by my country, it was never in my whole life in a manner so agreeable to myself."  

King George III was himself overcome with emotion. His response was: 

"Sir, The circumstances of this audience are so extraordinary, the language you have now held is so extremely proper, and the feelings you have discovered so justly adapted to the occasion, that I must say that I not only receive with pleasure the assurances of the friendly dispositions of the United States, but that I am very thankful to the Almighty that he has spared my life, and support[ed] my health, to see the present day...I wish you, Sir, to believe, and that it may be understood in America, that I have done nothing in the late contest, but what I thought myself indispensably bound to do, by the duty which I owed to my people. I will be very frank with you. I was the last to consent to the separation; but the separation having been made and having become inevitable, I have always said, as I say now, that I would be the first to meet the friendship of the United States as an independent power. The moment I see such sentiments and language as yours prevail, and a disposition to give this country the preference, that moment I shall say let the circumstances of language, religion and blood have their natural and full effect."  

Recall that the whole point of America's fight for independence was to be free from this very king's tyranny. And yet here is the first representative of the new country making nice with that very king. And so it is that, centuries later, two great nations have such a close and intimate relationship despite the fact that they literally fought a multi-year war when one side decided they wanted to be free from the other side.

Reconciliation is powerful. But it can feel wrong, because it usually involves one or both sides extending forgiveness for wrongs done. To be sure, there can be restitution for those wrongs - repayment or penance or healing, for example. But even then, true reconciliation is not merely transactional, as if I incurred a debt from you and then repaid it, but rather there was harm and breach and now we are moving past it.

Different faith traditions hold different paths to how we humans are able to "move past." However you get there, I hope that wherever you need reconciliation you are able to find it. And, if it is up to you to say gracious words like John Adams and King George did, that you are able to say them with authenticity and emotion.