Unity vs Restoration
Big Idea: the call to unity can often feel vague & passive if we don’t include the work of restoration.
Last week, I published a blog detailing my inner wrestling with the themes of equity, equality & justice. Specifically, I’ve been wrestling with what my role is in the search for them. Like many, I’ve been reading books, asking a lot of new questions & having a lot of conversations that have pushed & challenged me in ways that, sadly, I’ve probably not been nearly as open to until the last few years of my life.
I don’t think I’ve really ever been intentionally racist, misogynistic, homophobic, etc. But, I’m honestly not sure how many times I’ve been ANTI-racist, ANTI-misogynistic, ANTI-homophobic, etc.
As someone who identifies with a LOT of Enneagram 9 characteristics, I almost always desire peace & unity. But when it comes to these heavier themes of inequality & injustice, the kind of peace & unity I’ve often desired is fairly cheap...and doesn’t cost me much.
In a conversation just the other day, some friends & I were talking about the challenge with certain words when it comes to this idea. We talked about how ‘unity’ can sometimes feel too passive. Like how the call to unity without the work of restoration can almost sound like a request to those without power to acquiesce to those with power.
I think maybe the idea of ‘unity’ can, at times, just feel too ambiguous.
When someone says that we should be united, what is it that should unite us? Where we live? A faith we have or don’t have? Our values?
Don’t get me wrong, I still think unity can be a worthy goal, but it just feels like it’s lacking in agency.
In my (admittedly broken) mind, ‘restoration’ does a better job of conveying the participation & the work that needs to be done in order to actually achieve the unity that we might desire.
The work of restoration is the proof that unity, equity, justice, equality, etc are really things we want to see, not just talk about.
Even though restoration has been a more helpful word than unity for me lately, it’s not perfect. The definition is “the action of returning something to a former owner, place, or condition”. There doesn’t seem to be a time of true equity, equality or justice in our past that we should restore it to.
So, in my mind, the need for restoration in an effort to achieve unity isn’t about returning back to something that used to be better...but maybe the need to do the work of reconstructing the brokenness that exists (that some people like me have benefited from) in an effort to actually achieve a unity that is felt by everyone.
Maybe it’s all semantics. Maybe this language isn’t helpful for you like it has been for me. Regardless, here are a few questions that I’ve been wrestling with when it comes to these issues of unity that may be helpful for you…
When we are called to unity, what are we uniting over?
How might the call to unity without restoration be understood by those who have been marginalized?
What is my role - what is the work I need to do - in the act of restoration toward unity?
