Grace & accountability

Inherited Notions of Grace

My paternal grandfather suffered from severe diabetes and near the end of his life became bedridden. My grandmother did all she could to maximize his comfort and minimize his pain. I imagine my grandmother propping up her husband’s rail thin body to feed him. I see her rubbing tiger balm on his legs and feet to bring warmth and sensation to these areas where he experienced poor circulation.  I picture her showing extra care when rubbing balm around the nub of his one infected toe which was amputated to prevent the spread of gangrene. 

When asked about the lessons he learned from his mother, my father recounted that one day, while my grandmother tended to him, my grandfather looked remorsefully into her eyes and said, “Forgive me.” According to my father, without hesitating, my grandmother responded, “There is nothing to forgive.”

My father recounts that from this simple and brief exchange he learned about forgiveness, namely what it sounds like, what it requires, and how important it is. Throughout my childhood and early adulthood, I embraced this lesson and saw my grandmother as a saintly figure, casting aside significant hurt and harm to offer grace to her dying husband. 

A Shift in Understanding

My current understanding of forgiveness is largely shaped by my experience as a parent. There is rarely a week when I do not need to ask my son’s forgiveness for behaviors that are not aligned with my abolitionist values and beliefs around nonviolence. Recently, my son ran into my room at 9 pm, hopping up on my bed and then back down as he asked me for $15 to purchase some Robux (virtual coins used in the Roblox video game). I was putting away laundry and exhausted from a full day of back to back meetings followed immediately by dinner prep, eating, homework help, and dishwashing. When I heard his question, I stopped, glared wide eyed at him and through gritted teeth  growled, “No.” 

“Why are you irritated?” my child asked. His muted voice revealed his anxiousness. 

Both his question and tone invited a needed pause. As I breathed into my irritation, I felt a tightness in the back of my neck, a constriction in my throat, and a heaviness in my chest. When my body goes into this mode, it signals the presence of a younger self who resents giving more than she receives. By bringing awareness to these sensations, I brought awareness to the pattern of giving as a coping strategy that i no longer need. I took another inhale through my nose and exhale through my mouth and placed my free hand on my son’s shoulder, saying, “I am irritated and it’s not fair to have this reaction to your question. I’m sorry for this.” 

Harm as Death by a Thousand Cuts

In this video on Everyday Transformative Justice Practices, the writer, educator, and trainer for transformative justice and disability justice, Mia Mingus, shares: 

“I think a lot of harm that happens is like death by a thousand cuts….we often don’t pay attention until there are so many cuts that we are bleeding out and then we rush to the crisis and emergency and we drop everything. But what if we started rushing and dropping everything when the little cuts happen or when there are 4 or 5 little cuts instead of when we are bleeding out….. I think a lot of that speaks to how do we operate in a more long term understanding of violence, a more generational understanding of violence so that we move past just the immediacy of a feeling of revenge…or a feeling of helplessness to actually say this is an opportunity. I can either respond to this with more violence and harm and escalate it or I can take this opportunity to figure out how to de-escalate this and what would that look like?” 

Through parenting, I’m learning that my capacity to de-escalate aggressive communication or action is directly proportional to the grace I offer myself in these moments. And from this I’m learning that accountability without grace can be punitive and exacting and deepen my sense of shame and make me question my belonging.  

Grace as an Antidote to Shame

In spaces that I facilitate, a common community practice is “Recognize good intentions and take care of impact”. Often the emphasis is placed on taking care of impact based on the understanding that if our actions cause harm, we need to tend to their impact regardless of our intentions. In the free resource guide, In It Together, created by Interrupting Criminalization and Dragonfly Partners, the authors speak to why consideration of intentions is also important:

“Intent is the belief or desire that drives a person’s actions, which sometimes does not match the outcome or consequence of those actions…….We believe that intent does matter - as a signal that someone is in the struggle to change. When good intentions that lead to unintentional consequences are met with punishment, the person who has been punished often ends up stuck in shame and hopelessness. However, when a person with good intentions that lead to unintentional consequences is called-in or asked to take accountability for their actions we allow that person to learn, make amends, and make changes.” pg. 12, In It Together Toolkit 

Grace in the form of remembering my aspirations and intentions as a parent supports me when I fuck up.  It helps me reconnect with my capacity to love and nurture my child without expecting anything in return. It creates a protective field in which my shame can be held with care. Grace in the form of clarity that what is unskillful action in the present moment can be steadily transformed into skillful action in each emerging moment gives me strength to shift my default/habitual behaviors. 

Justification Disguised as Grace

All of this is what distinguishes grace from justification which sometimes masquerades as a request for grace. 

“I’m sorry I snapped at you but I just didn’t get enough sleep last night.” 

“I’m sorry I canceled on you at the last minute again. It’s just a really busy time.” 

“I’m sorry I’m getting this to you later than we planned and need your feedback by tomorrow, if possible. There is a lot going on in my life right now and I couldn’t get to this.”

I’ve shared versions of all of these statements with cherished collaborators and chosen and bio family members. In these statements, there is an absence of clear acknowledgement of a mistake or its impact on the recipient. There is also no expression of acting differently in the future to lessen or prevent negative impacts. And reading between the lines, there is an implicit message that these behaviors and their outcomes  were mostly caused by external factors. 

Grace without accountability prevents us from being with the consequences of our actions (or inaction) and offloads this work onto those impacted by these actions.  When the offloading impacts those with less positional power, there can be a reinforcement of dominant norms that perpetuate power over behaviors and strengthen supremacist hierarchies based on gender, race, class, age, positional power, and experiences of disability. 

The Interdependence of Grace & Accountability

To nurture cultures of belonging, we need both grace and accountability. Grace which makes room for us to reconnect with our highest aspirations and deeply rooted values. Grace which helps us generate a sense of self compassion and from this resourced place take accountability for mistakes and/or harm and make clear commitments to shift behaviors. Taking accountability in this way helps us nurture grace within ourselves because we recognize and embody our agency and remember our capacity to change.  

In the final days of his life, my paternal grandmother offered her husband a grace he could not offer himself. I do not know whether my grandmother’s forgiveness practice stemmed from wifely duty, conflict avoidance, suppressed anger, or metabolized suffering (or maybe all of the above). I do know that by offering my grandfather grace in the presence of my father, she became a heroic figure in her son’s eyes and imprinted on him a commitment to honor the dignity of women across his lifetime. My grandmother’s act of grace seeded my father’s accountability.  In my lifetime, there is an opportunity to weave the two together and send ripples of healing in all directions of my lineage and communities.