Restorative Justice and Healing

A Path Forward

An indistinct destination, on a necessarily long and circuitous journey (Zehr, Changing Lenses, 2015). Widely known as “the grandfather of restorative justice,” Zehr began as a practitioner and theorist in restorative justice in the late 1970s and has led hundreds of events around the world, including trainings and consultations on restorative justice, victim-offender conferencing, judicial reform, and other criminal justice matters. More about Zehr, his global work and the Zehr Institute at Eastern Mennonite University, can be found here:

I’ve been inspired by the work of Retired Wisconsin State Supreme Court Justice Janine Geske and Father Daniel Griffith in the application of restorative practices in the Catholic Church. That has led me to want to learn more, a search that led me to the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding program at Eastern Mennonite University (EMU). I’m particularly interested in the intersection of faith and justice. Professor Johonna Turner, in a lecture in my Restorative Justice course at EMU, described the connections this way: “Faith-based Restorative Justice practitioners learn to activate their potential to build bridges across the deep philosophical and religious divides.”

I love the image above for several reasons: it is the work of a talented friend, Ric Rosow, it depicts a somewhat indistinct destination (the Mississippi River in our neighborhood, downtown Minneapolis) and it indeed has bridges. After having been involved in hundreds of websites for a range of other purposes, this is my first personal blog. It will be a place to chronicle what I’ve learned in what has become a second career and a calling. The journey began with this work: