Reconciliation

Reconciliation

The vision statement of the Shalom Center declares that the purpose of this project is to is to create a space for the strengthening of relationships between people and God, themselves, others and nature. “Today, doctors, philosophers, theologians, and scientists are exploring the frontiers of a world where relationship, instead of isolation, is the key to understanding reality.  From the perspective of ecology, systems thinking, and the new physics, the universe is a dynamic community of interconnected energy events in which every unique being emerges from the influence of the entire universe... Love, instead of alienation, is essential for reality, according to the growing world vision be it from the perspective of metaphysics, theology, or science. (Epperly 109).”

[EH1]             The objectives of the Shalom Center seek to establish transformative relationships in three essential areas: in the person or individual, in the community, and in the environment.  To reach the restoration of a relationship, it is indispensable first to pass through a reconciliation process.  According to John Paul Lederach in his book Building Peace, the restoration of relationships at all levels of a society is essential to achieve sustainable peace.  The restoration of relationships and the reconciliation between God and people, people with each other, and people with nature is accomplished through the delicate and paradoxical balance between truth and mercy, between justice and peace.  Both paradoxes create the necessary energy to maintain the equilibrium along the path toward restoration, reconciliation, and the restructure of relationships. (30) 

To open this space for reconciliation, we must create programs and organizational structures that are in harmony with the values and the established objectives. To be in harmony means to seek to maintain the balance between the truth with its transparency and recognition and with mercy with its acceptance, forgiveness, compassion and healing.  It is to balance between the rights, restitution and equality of justice, and the unity, respect, and well-being of peace.  There cannot be neither mercy without truth nor peace without justice. (Lederach, Building 30-31) The challenge of the Shalom Center is to explore the paths of this dynamic balance through which one reaches the holy ground of reconciliation.

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 [EH1]