This is about healing and hope. Both of these topics are current for most of us. We want to be healed of our personal brokenness. Some of us have broken bones. Some have organs damaged by illness or cancer. Crises bring confusion and despair.

When a bone is broken, healing may take a long time, but the stimulus for healing immediately begins. Blood components and bone marrow elements are activated by the injury itself.

We always seek a way to improve or advance healing of fractures. We are now familiar with metallic immobilization in varied forms. These techniques can maintain good position and prevent excessive movement at the break. Casts, pins, suspension and braces can be used.

On the Altiplano of Bolivia, I have seen crude immobilization achieved when a local healer soaks homespun cloth in a mixture of dog blood and flour, and then wraps the arm or leg. These isolated and traditional healers contend that it is the blood that promotes healing, especially if it is from a black dog. When the blood and flour harden, a cast is the result, though not of plaster, fiberglass or plastic materials.

Whatever the immobilization method, osteoblasts and osteoclasts are at work, building a new matrix of bone, reshaping and achieving union over time. We know that measured exercise and good nutrition will also help healing. We are grateful for the emotional support from friends and family. Our hope is for an end to pain, a return to normal function and a result that will be solid and lasting.

Broken societies, broken economies and broken communities are all too common. Rwanda carries the stigma of genocide of monumental proportions that occurred in 1994. About a million Tutsis were massacred by Hutus in a bit over three months. The Tutsi were a minority in power and the Hutus overcame them. One can only imagine the terror that gripped communities.

Fifteen years have passed, but according to Philip Gourevitch in a recent issue of The New Yorker, an uneasy accommodation between the surviving victims and the perpetrators of atrocities is occurring.

President Kagame, a Tutsi, was elected in 2003. He has set free thousands of Hutus imprisoned for their crimes, to the disbelief of the prisoners. They were afraid of retribution and death while in prison. Now free, they went back to their own communities as demanded by the president. They were ordered to confess their crimes and to listen to the anguish of the relatives and neighbors of those who perished.

According to Gourevitch, “Rwanda is the only nation where hundreds of thousands of people who took part in mass murder live intermingled at every level of society with the families of their victims.”

An uneasy situation continues, but the country is now experiencing notable improvements in health, education and commerce. Healing is happening, if slowly.

These brief illustrations of brokenness and healing do not adequately detail the extreme complexity of each process. There is so much to learn, and perhaps even to unlearn, as we confront brokenness born of disease or accident. Methods of healing for our minds and bodies emerge from science, sometimes in unexpected ways.

Perhaps even more difficult is the way we confront and wish to heal broken human relationships on a personal level and among communities. We hope for healing, for peace, for justice and for reconciliation. This is most likely to happen when retribution and violence are replaced by patient work to discern and practice new paths to healing.

Thoburn Thompson is a retired doctor and a member of Freeborn County Paths to Peace.