VOLUME VI, CHAPTER 5, SECTION 13
How the Harmed Are Saved, Give Back, Clear the Name, Raise a Stone, Heal the Heart, and Not One Left Out
The sections before all spoke of the ones on the chain, the illiterate-in-the-law, how to save them, cut the chain, choose good people to step in. But there is one crowd of people, spoken of least, and wronged the most, the ones already ground, crushed, robbed, hounded by that chain. This section turns, wholly, to them. Cut the chain, and going forward no more are harmed, but those already harmed, are they to be left there, wronged, and not seen to? No. Not one may be left out. This section tells how the harmed are saved, four things, give back, clear the name, raise a stone, heal the heart.
Let me say first why this crowd must not be left out. All the sections before, cutting the chain, saving the people on the chain, choosing good people, are for the ones not yet harmed, so that going forward no more are ground and crushed and robbed and hounded. This is right, and it must be done. But if it stops here, then those already harmed, the ones the chain already ground, crushed, robbed, hounded, are left there, their wrong unrighted, their loss unrestored, their name unclear, their heart unhealed. To cut the chain and see only to the ones going forward, and turn your back on the ones already harmed, is itself a kind of leaving-out, a kind of coldness. The intent of the law is to protect people, and it must protect not only the people going forward, but also come back, and see to the people already harmed, and right their wrong. So this crowd, not one may be left out.
The first thing, give back. What was taken from the harmed, give it back. That home robbed away, the third link of the chain, give it back, and where it truly cannot be given back in kind, make it good in full. That livelihood crushed off, the second link, restore it, open again the road that was broken. That money ground away, the fines, the costs, the losses of the endless running, the first link, return it. Whatever that chain took from a person, by grinding, by crushing, by robbing, is counted up, and given back, made good. This is the first thing, and the most solid. A person harmed, the loss on his body, is real, and to right his wrong, the first thing is to give back what was taken, to make his broken home, his cut livelihood, whole again as far as it can be made whole.
The second thing, clear the name. Many of the harmed, besides the loss on the body, carry a stain on the name. That charge pressed on him by the dead letter, the second link, though he harmed no one, stained his good name, marked him. Some, hounded to death, the fourth link, and even after death the stain not washed, the name not cleared, the family left to bear the shame besides. So the second thing is to clear the name. Take that charge wrongly pressed by the dead letter, and by the intent, overturn it, wash it clean, and declare, plain, in the open, this person was wronged, he harmed no one, the fault was that chain, that dead letter, not him. Clear his name, wash off that stain, give him, or give the family he left, back a clean standing. For a person, the name is sometimes as heavy as the life. To right a wrong and not clear the name is to leave the heaviest half of the wrong un-righted.
The third thing, raise a stone. For the ones hounded to death by that chain, the fourth link, the ones whose very life was taken, giving back and clearing the name are still not enough, because the person is gone, and cannot come back to see his wrong righted. For them, there is a third thing, raise a stone. Raise a stone, and set down, plain, on it, that there was such a person, wronged so, hounded so, that his wrong is now righted, his name now clear. Let the ones who come after see it, remember it, remember that a living person was, by that chain, by that dead letter, wronged to death. This stone is not only for the one who is gone, it is a warning set before all who come after, that never again may a chain, a dead letter, hound a living person to death like this. To raise a stone is to keep the wrong of the ones hounded to death from being forgotten, and to turn it, into a thing that guards the people going forward. Not one of the harmed may be left out, and the ones hounded to death, who most cannot speak for themselves, must most be remembered, most have a stone raised, most not be let to sink away, unseen, unspoken.
The fourth thing, heal the heart. This is the deepest, and hardest. The harm that chain did to a person is not only the loss on the body, the stain on the name, it is a wound in the heart. A person ground, crushed, robbed, hounded, driven to a corner with no road out, every door to reason it out shut in his face, that wound, that despair, does not heal of itself once the home is given back and the name is cleared. He may, for a long time, still not be able to trust, still wake in the night from that being-hounded, still carry a fear, a wound, that will not close. And the families of the ones hounded to death carry a grief, a wound, deeper still. So the fourth thing is to heal the heart. To give the harmed, and the families of the ones gone, a warm, patient seeing-to, to walk with them, slowly, out of that wound, that despair, that fear, and let the heart, slowly, mend. Give back the thing on the body, clear the name, and then come back and see to the wound in the heart, and only then is a person truly, wholly, saved. To right the wrong on the body and turn your back on the wound in the heart is to leave the deepest half of the harm un-healed.
These four, give back, clear the name, raise a stone, heal the heart, put together, are how the harmed are saved. And one line runs through all four, not one may be left out. However many were harmed by that chain, however long ago, however hard to trace, each is a living person, or a person who was living, and each is to be counted, sought out, seen to, given back, cleared, remembered, healed. Not because it is easy, but because each was a person, and the intent of the law is to protect people, and a person harmed and left out, unseen, is a wrong the intent of the law cannot bear.
Do not think this asks too much, sees to too many. Think back to that chain, its every stroke driving the people to their deaths, and how many, over how long, it ground, crushed, robbed, hounded. To cut the chain and not come back for these people is to right only half the thing. The cutting of the chain guards the people going forward, and the seeing-to of the harmed rights the wrong already done. The two together, and the intent of the law, protecting people, is whole, reaching both forward and back. Forward, no more harmed, back, the harmed all seen to, and only then has that ruler of the law truly turned back to protecting people, wholly.
And look, these four things, give back, clear the name, raise a stone, heal the heart, are of one lineage with the root of the whole book, settling people. Saving the slave, the laborer, the one on capital, was settling the people not yet lost. This section, seeing to the harmed, is settling the people already wounded, and the ones already gone. It is that same heart, reaching to the very last person, the most wronged, the most easily left out, the ones already harmed, already gone, and settling them too, so that not one is left out in the cold. This is how far this book's heart reaches, not only to the people going forward, but back, to right the wrong of every one already harmed, and settle even the ones who can no longer speak. The next section takes this chapter, cut the chain, saved the people on it, chosen good people, seen to the harmed, and draws it in to the whole, to see that ruler of the law turned back to protecting people, and land it on that one plainest thing, letting the people live and work in peace.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.