On Sunday, John had cards with four questions that help us practice restorative justice. I loved the questions, but unfortunately not everyone could see the cards. 

John asked us to imagine someone building a block tower and another person knocking it over. We might ordinarily expect “justice” to look like naming who knocked over the tower and making sure they got punished. Maybe they’d be kicked out or sent to Time Out. Maybe they wouldn’t get to play with blocks. Or maybe we’d insist that something they care about get knocked over. 

On Sunday, we pointed out that this is more accurately called “vengeance.” But we often confuse it with justice. Restorative justice takes a different approach. And John suggested that the first question we might ask is What happened? 

This can be a challenging question sometimes. We have to be really honest if we want the answer to lead us toward reconciliation and repair. We could say, “Ashley knocked over the tower I built.” It might be more honest to acknowledge, “I built a block tower in the middle of the doorway, and when Ashley came around the corner, they ran into the tower and it fell apart.” We don’t know people’s motivations or feelings or intentions, but we can honestly name what happened. And that might honestly just be “Ashley knocked over the tower.” 

It might even be honest to say that Ashley found out their pet jellyfish had run away, then came into the room and knocked over my block tower. Saying this doesn’t make it OK for Ashley to knock over the tower. There can still be consequences to Ashley knocking over the tower. But being honest and expansive about naming what happened can also help us soften into the next question: Who did it happen to?

If Ashley knocked over the tower I was building, the obvious person suffering is me. If I built my tower in a doorway, maybe running into the tower also happened to Ashley. And if Ashley’s pet jellyfish ran away, we might recognize that something painful happened to Ashley too. In some situations, it’s worth naming that everyone in the playroom was somehow affected by the tower getting knocked over. 

So What do people need now? We can get pedantic sometimes about the word “need,” and it’s often important for us to know the difference between what we need and what we want. Maybe I don’t need my block tower to be rebuilt. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to say that I need to know that I matter, though. And maybe Ashley needs clear doorways. Or comforting because they’re sad about their jellyfish. Maybe everyone in the room needs reassurance that it’s a safe space to build block towers. Or just a safe enough space in general.

Multiple people can need different things, and all of them can be important, and none of them has to be most important. Our interdependent relationships can hold multiple, complex needs. It just takes a little more work sometimes than declaring ourselves most important and demanding that someone else pay for our pain. 

Once we’re clear about what’s happened and what everyone needs, we can ask What can help repair the harm? Maybe it’s as simple as Ashley saying, “I’m sorry.” Maybe we need a clear set of boundaries about where it’s OK to build towers, and what spaces we need to not build block towers. Maybe repair looks like Ashley helping me build a new tower. And maybe in the midst of all that, Ashley having some space to grieve their jellyfish could be a piece of that repair too. 

It doesn’t have to be one-sided, and it doesn’t have to be terribly creative. But it does have to be something we can be responsible for. Saying that politicians should pass better laws about block towers isn’t an actionable answer to what can help repair the harm. We are responsible for the work of reconnection.

So, where in your life can asking these questions help you move toward restoration and reconnection? What happened? Who did it happen to? What do people need now? And what can help repair the harm?