Justice Sounds Like

Hopelessness engulfed me; waters of a dark and lofty sea. I succumbed to floating just below the space where still water and the raging battle meet. I don’t know how to fight. Going to war with heart that knows no rest is a constant threat of steady death. One night a few years ago I was exposed to violence and injustice that surpassed the oppression of my own heart. I saw prisoners of twisted sexuality. I found out about little girls and women forced to be a part of things that kill the spirit and maim the flesh. I was shown images of women locked away in treacherous rooms where they were kept imprisoned with drugs and threats. Will we witness evil and look away? Will we turn our heads and sigh and say what a shame? Who can look on poverty driven violence and not barrage God for answers and relief? Who can walk amoung humanity crushed by sin and not seek comfort?The response of a tender heart is to weep when others weep…

Tremble with revelation of the same terror that another is unsheltered from. Cry over the death proclaimed and life profaned by weak men. Scream because you know living when it goes on without light. Weep enough tears and you will run out of moisture in your eyes. Lay on the ground beneath the burden of injustice for long enough and you will not be able to laugh or smile or even breathe. Try to take a breath when every voice in your head is the haunting reminder that souls are living dead. Mourn for those who are mourning!

This was how my heart unfolded as I began to understand the reality of human trafficking and all the evil that takes place in the buy and sell of human life. Trying to enter into divine compassion for injustice is exhausting and consuming. My passionate attempts to educate turned heads ended in frustration. I got really tired of shouting to nonchalant ears and running into doors that just wouldn’t move. I got really tired of crying. Really tired of wet eyes and snot and feeling pain. I got so tired. So, so weary of attempting to defend a cause that I didn’t see the solution to. Compassion enters in. Compassion sits in the dirt and looks at wounds and holds hurting hands and says “I’m sorry”. Salvation becomes the slain. Therin we discover the gap between human unction for social action and divine insight into human need. I am not salvation. I am not another’s hiding place, I’m just a hand and heart willing to journey through the valleys of weeping. How difficult it is to bear anothers burdens without being crushed. Attempting to empathetically relate to the sorrow of the human race without having your soul anchored in truth and hope will bring you down like a swift disease. In my melancholic proclivity I deeply touched the woe of an age old reality. I tried to empathize with the horror that those enslaved experience without fixing my eyes on the person who holds the keys to humanities healing. Exhausted I resigned myself to a indolent existence detached from the battle raging in the water just above my head. To keep from drowning in misery I had to just look away from the face of the abused.
This has been me for the past 12 months. Fatigued resignation. The darkness of injustice became the preoccupation of my heart. I used to weep and snot up the floor for the girls next door. I used to sob and plead for intervention of abused body parts and vulnerable hearts. Used to spend hours in intercession that the tragedy of vile behavior unrestrained might be broken. Really I was wailing for myself and really I was addressing the soreness of my own fallen soul. I was awakening to the wrongness of selfishness and crying out for salvation from an isolated self.

Thanks to a friend and leader I’ve recently realized that its time for me to leave the grief of my childhood behind. Its time to bury the dead man. Its time to shake the shame of what I’ve been subjected to and made. Its time to call this day its own; newness made and newness sewn. We are not what vindication we bring. No, we are the objects of love and love’s defense will be made.

I want my being completey surrendered to the knowledge of God. I want every train of thought and every plateau of my soul to be a resonance chamber for the beauty and worthiness of Jesus to resound. I want to meditate on goodness and mercy as diligently as I sink and rise to eat. I want the words embodying truth to be carved into my memory as ink is sewn beneath the skin. Can I give myself up to you anymore? Can I fill myself with more of God? Can I possibly be a canyon where the intricacies of your thoughts go forth as anthems? Can my heart hold or simply touch the cadence of the voice like waters? Can I be filled with the sights and sounds of heaven’s throne?

I’m learning to fix my eyes on hope…the gap between the needs of man and God has been bridged, we just aren’t aware of the implications of divinity in the body of a man. I’m not aware. yeah. Sorry for the awkward paragraph transition that is about to take place but I’m too lazy and too nauseous from this bumpy train to create better flow between my thoughts.
……..What fuels our unwillingness to give up comfort and wealth to pursue help for those of us who are continuing onward in a living hell. Need I paint a picture of dusty desolation? I think most of us have become numb to naked children and raw suffering. Most of us have to turn our eyes away from evangelistic television programs because our children havn’t eaten their dinner just yet and our homes beg for some domestic attention. I think I’m unearthing a common wall between hearts that are willing to embrace compassion and that actual embrace taking place. What do we do? I put myself in the shoes of suburban mommas and make a mental list of all their day demands. How can a faithful PTA mom extend her already busy hands to nurture the face, the heart of another child? How do we mobilize degree-seeking, identity-bankrupt twenty somethings to throw their lives into transformative compassion? I can’t move on someone elses behalf unself I know that my back is covered. If I’m no one unless I have that sacred diploma behind my name then how can I address the identity questions of entire nations? I can’t. Social justice is impossible without Jesus. Social justice requires God. If my contribution to some well meaning 3rd world development organization depends on how it affects my reputation then I may never be freed to give myself away. I need to see hope more clearly.

FLICKA.
Thanks for reading and letting me be super raw. I wish I was eloquent but these are the only sounds I know how to make. Anyways. This is what I’m processing right now….
thoughts?

Jess