Justice works when it is blended with forgiveness, grace and compassion.

Love, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.1 Cor 13

Using the words of the Sandinista freedom fighter, Tomás Borge.

My personal revenge will be your children’s right to schooling and to flowers. My personal revenge will be this song bursting for you with no more fears.

My personal revenge will be to make you see the goodness in my people’s eyes, implacable in combat always generous and firm in victory.

My personal revenge will be to greet you ‘Good morning!’ in streets with no beggars, when instead of locking you inside they say, ‘Don’t look so sad.’ When you, the torturer, daren’t lift your head, My personal revenge will be to give you these hands you once ill-treated with all their tenderness intact.

_Luis Enrique Mejía Godoy_ translated from the Spanish by Dinah Livingstone

We have just returned from our first visit to Nicaragua it has been a most amazing experience. Nicaragua is slowly recovering from a devastating civil war. The words of Tomas Borge, quoted above reflect a Christian response to the most traumatic violence inflicted on an individual, responding with forgiveness and grace. However forgiveness and grace must still allow for restorative justice as reflected in this story from another part of the world which survived and flourished after the most horrendous genocide, Rwanda.

" After the genocide when  nearly one million people were killed the government court system was unable to deal with the number of prisoners needing to be brought to justice, local  Gacaca courts were set up in communities when the whole community was present presided over by the elders of that community and where the victim took part not just by giving evidence, but also by helping the decide on appropriate punishment. The emphasis was on truth telling and restorative justice. Leniency was given to prisoners who admitted their  guilt and expressed contrition. 

One poor orphan boy, who had killed the only son of a widow, was brought to trial. The boy freely admitted he was guilty saying that he was frightened into joining one of the killing gangs as it was the case of either killing or be killed. He pleaded forgiveness from the widow. The widow replied, " as a Christian I freely forgive you, just as Christ has forgiven me, however you have done a great wrong, having taken my son from me and deprived my of all help and comfort in my old age. Therefore I pronounce this sentence, you will come and live in my house and you  will be my son and I will be your mother."

Turning the other cheek and substituting restorative justice for revenge allows these countries to overcome the evils of cycles of blood feuds based on tribal identity and replacing revenge with creative restorative justice  and rebuilding of communities.