“Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression;
bring justice to the fatherless, and please the widow’s cause,” (Isaiah 1:17).
“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the
Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly
with your God?” (Micah 6:8).
“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent
injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.”
Elie Wiesel
“In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep
within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and
it will rise up a thousandfold in the future. When we neither punish nor
reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are
thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.”
Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The
Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956
______________________________
What is justice?
Perhaps justice is as simple as a person getting
what they “deserve”
If I eat too much, I gain weight
That’s justice
It is justice too, of a sort,
If I do something risky and foolish and get injured
But justice is more than consequences
Justice is about setting things right
This is why Sacred demands justice
Love requires justice
It requires that if something is not right
It be corrected
It requires that if something is out of balance
That if one person has too much power
And another not enough
That be resolved
That if one person is harming another
The harm stop
But more, that repair begin
Justice is not just punitive
It is restorative
And justice is for all
The rules don’t change
Dependent on who you are
If there is justice
It doesn’t matter if you are rich or poor
A person who is white, or BIPOC
A person with power, or a powerless person
Justice demands that all be treated the same
Because in the eyes of God
In the heart of the Sacred
All are the same
All
Of all the dangers that are out there
In this angry and torn world
The loss of justice may be the greatest
The loss of justice may grieve God the most
Because a loss of justice is a loss of love
Justice has always been the last defense
Against hate, racism,
The abuse of power,
Greed
Justice has often been the one thing
That has saved us, as a nation
As a world
When justice dies
Countries die
People die
Hope dies
Love dies
When justice dies, evil thrives
We have seen it
All too often
And now we see it again
In a country that
Pledges “liberty and justice for all”
And yet
An unjust process
Created a tainted court
And now justice has died
And a malignant person of power
Is not getting what he deserves
Is not treated “equally”
And we are seeing the foundations of justice
Ripped out
Leaving us with a house built on sand
And so we must protest
We may not be able to prevent injustice
We may be powerless to keep our country from becoming
A place where justice, equity, equality
And thus love, have died
But we cannot slide into this abyss
In silence
As I hear the news
Watch a deeply flawed and abusive person
Play games with justice (and with our country)
As I watch a badly tainted (and even corrupt) SCOTUS
Deny justice
My heart hurts
It weeps for my beloved country
Because justice will be served
God’s justice will not be denied
God has always demanded justice
And justice has always meant bringing down the mighty
And lifting up the poor
“For three sins of Israel, even for four, I will not
relent.
They sell the innocent for silver, and the needy for a
pair of sandals.
They trample on the heads of the poor as on the dust of
the ground
and deny justice to the oppressed…
Fallen is Virgin Israel, never to rise again, deserted in
her own land,
with no one to lift her up.” (Amos)
O Sacred One
O Love
We know that you always rebuild
But you often rebuild only after we have destroyed
After we have taken the path to devastation
Turn us around Lord
Wake us up!
Stir the fires of love and justice!
Give us voices to protest
Give us the resolve to choose wisely (and vote wisely)
May we choose justice over power
Justice over profit
Justice over retribution
For we would be your people
And walk in your way
Which is to walk humbly, in love and justice
With you
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