Justice

Just finished watching Hotel Rwanda again and it was just as good and powerful as it was the first time - maybe even more powerful this time around. Powerful movies do that. They suck you in and sit you down. Pulled in and set hostage, they won't let your eyes escape even if they wanted to. They share their stories relentlessly as you become less an audience and more a ghost: a quiet existence in the background of onscreen experiences. But at the end of the movie, we're all still ghosts: spectators who float on in life, always flirting with the romance of justice but never manifesting our hands on its responsibility.

I remember standing with my friend Grace Ko on library walk one day handing out red envelopes adressed to President Obama. That's when this girl came up to me and started hounding me with trap-questions about abortion, conception, Women's rights and other lightning rod topics. I could tell she didn't want to really see or understand my point of view and that she just wanted to argue and make me look like a chauvinistic fundamentalist idiot (trust me. it was pretty obvious). The more I listened to her, the more I grew impatient. though I laugh about it now, I remember praying even for patience. That's when she asked me:

"If you care so much about life, why aren't you doing anything about sex-trafficking? systemic poverty? international genocide?"

I was cut deep. half-embarassed and half-angry, I swallowed my guilt and let it run its rightful course because I was exactly that: guilty. I remember feeling naked; I wanted to hide. I hated the idea of being convicted by the one rubbing salt in my wound. I think I still do. 

I wanted to tell her how wrong she was. I wanted to defend myself and brag about how compassionate of a person I thought I was and how I was taking a stand for justice by being on library walk promoting the red letter campaign. In my mind, I wanted to tell her to shut her trap and tell her that there was no way that I could carry all the burdens of the world on my shoulders or how I could never possibly feed all the starving people in the world by myself and that she probably didn't care about anything them either. But I couldn't because no matter how much it hurt to hear those words coming from her lips, it bore a great deal of truth. It reminded me that I must never fall more in love with the idea of social justice than actually being a part of it, lest I become a ghost, clapping and applauding the a film whilst holding little to no regard for the injustice behind the screen. 

When we do nothing, the world continues to burn and people pay the price in blood.

I'm not exactly sure what I'm supposed to do now. But of this much I'm certain: I must care.

Don Cheadle murders the movie btw. He oozes intensity. sheesh.

The wonder, magic, and intensity of faith.

You cannot be a Christian without being a mystic.

I was talking to a homeless man at a laundry mat recently, and he said that when we reduce Christian spirituality to math we defile the Holy. I thought that was very beautiful and comforting because I have never been good at math. Many of our attempts to understand Christian faith have only cheapened it. I can no more understand the totality of God that the pancake I made for breakfast understands the complexity of me. The little we do understand, that grain of sand on our minds are capable of grasping, those ideas such as God is good, God feels, God loves, God knows all, are enough to keep our hearts dwelling on His majesty and otherness forever.

I love how the Gospels start, with John the Baptist eating bugs and baptizing people. The religious people started getting baptized because it had become popular, and John yells at them and calls them snakes. He says the water wont do anything for them, it will only get their snakeskins wet. But if they meant it, if they had faith that Jesus was coming and was real, then Jesus would ignite the kingdom life within them. I love that because for so long, religion was my false gospel. But there was no magic in it, no wonder, no awe, no kingdom life burning in my chest. And when i get tempted by that same stupid Christian religion, I go back to the beginning of the Gospels and am comforted that there is something more than the emptiness of ritual. God will ignite the kingdom life within me, the Bible says. That's mysticism. It isn't a formula that I am figuring out. It is something God does.

Too much of our time is spent trying to chart God on a grid, and too little is spent allowing our hearts to feel awe. By reducing Christian spirituality to formula, we deprive our hearts of wonder.

- Donald Miller

YES.

do more

A Christian boy since the age of fifteen, you'd think I’d know better.
after all I’ve seen, I’ve still a lot of growing to do
until I can fill in the space in my Father's shoe

I might have written a verse or two
About all the lovey things I’d like to do
Hypocrisy! Yuck, but it’s true.
I’ve yet to find rhythm in what I must

There may be some swag dripping off the splash in my diction
But the friction of conviction re-minds my mind to remind me I must obey
It’s the ghost of a hope in an evil day

You see, I’ve done a lot of learning to love people in clever ways
but talking’s made my walking
lazy.
Though love is described as both a verb and a word,
it remains - at best - just an idea you've heard.

That is, until you do it.
Then it’s like magic,
Though there’s no trick

Am I:
In a cage?
Staring helplessly?
Longing for a chance to show my brother love?
No. debt paid and cage-less, I am a free man.
A free. laaaaazy. man.

Fat and gluttoned off grace,
I’ve dropped the baton during the race
set up camp on the side of the road
and enjoyed the embrace of the destructive broad.

“What is love?”
You can read about it in a book
You can talk about it ‘til your throat runs dry
You can even pull your head back and gaze into the sky
BUT keep in mind –
time is ticking
motivation is fleeting
You’ll never learn to swim ‘til you jump in

It isn’t love until you do it. It really isn’t.

I’m poor!
though my wallets packs a few bills,
these sermons sound good but they can’t fulfill spiritual thrills.
There’s more to life than Sundays,
God plans to end my life with a bang, not a sigh.
And for that? I’d gladly give it to him
than to half-ass another hymn.

Though I’m not old, my heart is bold
Though I have fl aws I won’t give pause
I’m selling my gold to hold. More.

I’m heading into the darkest part of town to plant some life 

with seeds from heaven
Cause the hungry ones are the most ignored
Little do they know, theirs is the Lord’s reward.

I should stop writing. I’m off to fill in some shoes.