I am sitting here at Bean & Barley and I want to write but I have no idea what to write. It’s like wanting to go for a walk but not having a destination in mind…you just step out and see what happens.
“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door,” he used to say. “You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.
Tolkien (or Bilbo) was right…to step out of any safe place is a dangerous thing. You become open to a myriad of possible influences you have no control over. But there is something to be said for the exterior life…the life lived outside of oneself and in the midst of the wild, wild world. After all I do not think we were ever meant for safety. We were not meant to be hidden behind walls, both the brick & mortar kind and the ones we raise within ourselves.
Even now I am writing this outside of my safe place…my warm cozy corner in the dining room of my small space. My safe space. This is really my safe outside space and so it is really only a step…like going to the atrium and observing the forest in the storm but from behind the safety of glass. Still – it’s a step.
It is a true Autumn day today…cool air, some wind and the falling of leaves. Death is coming on the cold and with it the grey bones of naked trees and the movement to white and gray. But if there is one thing we learn in our lives it is that this death comes with rebirth, resurrection and new Spring life…new hopes and opportunities. The cycle of the world points us to this truth and we either see it and rejoice or we do not and we despair.
I appreciate Winter.
It is a space. It is a time to stop and reflect. To breathe. To know what the end of things may be like and to learn to appreciate the life that we have. There is nothing like stepping out into the vacuum of a black Winter night with a frigid wind blowing and crisper than crisp stars shining down on you. It is quiet because the world has moved into itself and feels asleep. In that moment you can look up into space and know you are a little closer to the emptiness of it. You can stand perfectly still and feel the subzero burn and wonder at every sensations and why you have them at all.
I appreciate Winter.
So here we are wandering through words and sentences like tourists through the streets and alleys of New York. What is around the corner? Shall we venture down the dark ways or stay in the electric embrace of Time Square? There are doors we wonder about in the distance. Places we have heard about but never ventured to enter into. Should we go there? Probably but we won’t today…not today. This is more of an advance reconnoiter; a learning the lay of the land.
Right now I am very content. This means I am very much living in the present moment. It is fear that drives me to the future and it is bitterness that drives me to the past…but contentedness…that keeps me rooted in the here and now. These things should be enough to tell me about where I should live; where I should love.
I have been thinking about justice of late. What is it? This is a tough question (or perhaps it is the answer that is tough). We live in a multifaceted world that is increasingly unhappy with solo answers. Justice is dependent upon circumstance and person…justice is often akin to vengeance nowadays. This rings false to me.
Justice, it seems to me, needs to be based upon something unchangeable, something absolute. Truth. You know where I am going with this. All the roads I tread lead me back to this one place. Every journey I take and every thought I have – if stuck to long enough leads to this one place…this one God. I cannot help it…it is where I go.
Justice…truth…God.
If you remove God from the equation then truth becomes dependent upon us and this is a frightening prospect. If truth is dependent upon us than justice is as well…in which case it is hard to imagine there ever being the possibility of real justice.
Justice – noun
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[mass noun] just behaviour or treatment:a concern for justice, peace, and genuine respect for people
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the quality of being fair and reasonable:the justice of his case
- the administration of the law or authority in maintaining this:a tragic miscarriage of justice
I love the Oxford dictionary but as with most philosophical subjects it is remarkably unhelpful here. We can cull a few things from the definition that may help however. Justice seems to hinge on behaviour and character somehow. This is another reason why I believe that as long as justice hinges solely upon humanity the prospect of achieving it is bleak.
However if we have a model to look to; a paragon to ponder…we have the prospect of coming close, and with justice it is worthwhile to come as close as possible.
A complete reading of the Bible offers a vantage from which to discover the possibilities of justice. I say complete because too often, agenda driven individuals like to making sweeping observations based upon a verse or a chapter or a book…which is a little like deciding that I am a Nazi because I have a copy of Mein Kampf on my bookshelf rather than concluding I am a person interested in human nature, history and the human condition after thoughtfully observing the other 700 books that surround it.
The prophet Micah speaks to me of justice in ways no other part of scripture does. Or rather he speaks to ancient Israel about justice and I seek to mine the truth of it and bring it properly into my context.
With what shall I come before the LORD
and bow down before the exalted God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousand rivers of olive oil?
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.
– Micah 6:6-8
There is much to be mined from these words. There is a relational equation here that leads to justice and peace. Israel seeks the justice of God and imagine they must make an exchange for it as is the way of human interaction. Israel believes there is a relational economy that needs to be honored here. They are correct is recognizing the God is the source of justice and peace but lose their way in assuming there is an exchange that must take place. That God requires sacrifice…oil, rams, your firstborn.
In response God says there is nothing that can be given that God does not already properly own. All belongs to God. You cannot give this God anything this God does not already claim.
When we talk of a man doing anything for God or giving anything to God, I will tell you what it is really like. It is like a small child going to his father and saying, “Daddy, give me sixpence to buy you a birthday present.” Of course, the father does, and he is pleased with the child’s present. It is all very nice and proper, but only an idiot would think that the father is sixpence to the good on the transaction. – C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
We cannot give anything to God that which God has not already given to us.
If the verse were to end there then we are left in despair at the realization that justice and peace are impossible. But of course the verse continues and we are given the great equation…the great realization (should we chose to realize) that justice and mercy are contingent upon walking with this God.
That we are to ACT justly, LOVE mercy and WALK humbly with a God that deigns to be called YOUR God. This God who gives Godself to us that we might in some way become what we were designed to become – human…fully.
To justice then. It is not vengeance. It is not eye for eye and tooth for tooth as Israel had assumed but rather loving God and neighbour out of the well-spring of a God-fueled love for self. When one loves one wishes to see wholeness in the broken. We do not desire to hurt the ones we love.
Justice is any action/response toward our neighbour that is mercifully rooted in a God-fueled love for others and ourselves.
Justice without love is not justice. Love without God is not love.
This was a good wander…I am glad I stepped out my front door.
Harnessing Chaos 