Christmas arrives with the story of a divine spark born into humanity as a vulnerable baby. It’s a powerful symbol that can unsettle our assumptions about who belongs, who is acceptable and who is not.

Jacinda Ardern, then Prime Minister of New Zealand, embodied this inclusiveness after the Christchurch mosque attacks when she said of the grieving Muslim community: “they are us.”

Her words reached out to embrace those most wounded as we all struggled to comprehend the devastation.

Of the man arrested she declared, “He is a terrorist. He is a criminal. He is an extremist. But he will, when I speak, be nameless.”

There is a need to clearly articulate harm and hold people accountable. It’s also understandable that we try to erase from memory or existence the people who hurt us.

Blame and shame

We saw this instinct recently when a senior police officer resigned after allegations of misconduct. His public shaming was swift and stark. There was further outrage when it became clear that the woman who tried to expose the wrongdoing had been victimised.  

But isolating evil – banishing it to the basement of our collective soul – offers only delusional comfort. Rage can be poured onto a single figure, then we move on weaving narratives of love and resilience.

I wonder whether our attempts to “clean up” what troubles us – through commissions, safeguarding organisations, cities and religions – might inadvertently deepen the wound.

By insisting the problem lies elsewhere, we risk missing the truth; that we and our institutions need redemption just as much as any offender.

Facing the shadow

This struck me forcefully while piloting The Journey Home, a restorative justice programme grounded in the prodigal son parable and Rembrandt’s painting of it.

His life, encompassing brilliant creativity alongside deceit, cruelty, arrogance and tragedy, reveals the fragile layers we all hold behind our public masks.

Henri Nouwen, meditating on Rembrandt’s painting, realised that all the story’s characters lived within him.

His insight is cutting: “there is no offence, crime or war that does not have its seeds in our own hearts.”

They are us

If that is true, then “they are us” must include the killer, the sex offender, the liar, the terrorist and the thief, alongside you and me.

I understand that is repugnant to some.

Perhaps the challenge is not to erase people or make unrealistic claims that this must never happen again but to reckon with fragile human reality.

To name the darkness, not only in others but in ourselves.

To hold offenders to account while wondering what in us needs attention.

This approach can be the redemptive energy moving us towards the integrated life we all yearn for.

The divine spark

Being restorative could become our creative life force.

Inspiring us to transcend personal shame and struggle, by noticing and greeting the holy in another.

For Christmas insists the divine spark is not selective.

It lives in every heart, confronting us with the truth that love must reach even into the shadows we would rather deny.

• Sande Ramage loves exploring, one word at a time, what she and others mean by God, spirituality, and religion. She’s a healthcare chaplain, restorative justice facilitator, pastoral supervisor, and wordsmith. Inspiration arrives through pondering dreams in Jungian analysis, walking, movies on the big screen, live orchestral music, sopranos, and devouring books.