Our justice conversation is specifically a conversation about justice rooted in love. We believe that without this basis of understanding, actual justice is not possible. Responses that are retributive, or based in punishment, or in an idea of ‘fairness’ which is always from a limited viewpoint, should not be called ‘justice.’ These advance harm and violence and are not the remedy we need for peace in our world and neighborhoods and homes.
Justice is often a cry for some kind of repair when harm has happened. Often the harm is egregious, or so long-sustained that it cannot be truly restored to some previous state of health. What is needed is a righting of the relationship of the stakeholders to each other. It is only through the repair of relationship, one that restores each party to dignity, with attention to each person’s needs, accepted accountability, and collective mourning for what has been lost, that the needed healing can take place.
Love cannot exist outside of relationship. When we hold each other in dignity, with attention to each other’s needs, accept accountability, and mourn our losses and heal together, it brings us to a space where we also share joy together, and live in community together. This is why love, and only love, is the root of all justice.
Podcasts
The Justice Conversation podcast series brings together people who discuss from the perspective of love and relationship. The hosts are Philipos Hailemichael and Kim Vanderheiden.
Philipos is a resident of the Bay Area in California whose mother tongue language is Tigrinya. His perspective on this project includes the Tigrinya culture and norms where he grew up. Tigrinya (ትግርኛ) is of the Afroasiatic language family. It is commonly spoken in Eritrea and in northern Ethiopia’s Tigray Region.
Kim is from the United States. She started the Justice Conversation project to contribute to a shift in cultural understanding from punitive to relationship-centered justice.
Visit our YouTube Channel to take in the conversation. Transcripts are available here. We welcome others to join and share.
About Matthew
Bill Denham shares his overwhelming grief, his search into the meaning of justice, and the path of restoration in response to the murder of his stepson, Matthew Avery Solomon. Bill’s began sharing his grief through a series of poems, Looking for Matthew, which he recorded, letterpress printed into a hand bound book, and had an regular commercially printed version published by a small press.
When Matthew’s murderers were arrested and the death penalty was on the table for their trial, Bill began a meaningful search into the nature of justice, and the role of restoration, in a new book, What is Justice. We share this book in full here, in these articles:
Matthew Part I: What is Justice?
Matthew Part II: The nature of being human
Matthew Part III: We Are Not Innocent
Matthew Part IV: Compassion –a radical critique
Matthew Part IV: What is Justice Epilogue
As of 2024, the death penalty has been dropped due in part to Bill’s adamant refusal to support it as an act of justice for Matthew’s killers. There has recently been an agreement to enter a guilty plea and there will be a sentencing hearing later this year, after which restorative justice conversations will be possible. We will continue to publish Bill’s path.
Joining in Conversation
We welcome more voices in the Justice Conversation project. If you would like to help with podcasts, contribute to content, or have another project in mind that you think might belong here, please let us know.
You can find more material on the website justiceconversation.org, which we’ll gradually be moving over and blending with this site.