justice

Justice

I believe all children have a strong sense of right and wrong, fair and unfair. Their cry for justice often revolves around who got the bigger cookie or who got to stay up later than whom, but their determination to see the right thing done does not stop at petty, everyday occurences. When children are confronted by the bigger issue, they adamantly proclaim what is right and they hate the bad guy for getting away with what he did.

Perhaps this is why, as children, we wanted to grow up to be superheroes, firemen, and policeman. And perhaps this is why God tells us to be childlike before we can enter into the kingdom of heaven...

For me, I was one such child. Then, as I grew older, I began to see injustices with a blasé attitude. "Hey, that happens to everyone, why let myself get worked up over it, right?" "A lot of people endure hardships like poverty and genocide." "What's the big deal?" I am ashamed that I have felt that way on so many different occasions.

Recently--and by "recently," I mean within the last few years--I have had my attention drawn to the plight of women and children who are taken advantage of simply because they can't stand up for themselves. In particular, this awareness has come with the emphasis our university has had with efforts to help stop human trafficking.

Yesterday, when I was reading my Bible, I read several chapters in Exodus talking about justice, doing the right thing regardless of circumstances. In Micah, we are asked what God requires of us: to act justly, love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God. Over and over, God tells His people to plead for the case of the widow and the oppressed. We are to be kind to foreigners because once we were oppressed in a foreign land.

So why are we not doing what we are told to do? Why am I not getting a law degree so that I can help people in the real world? Really, how much good is an English degree going to do someone who's been sold into prostitution at the age of five? I don't think that hearing about how Lacan would perceive a certain literary work would do anything to erase the hurt and humiliation inflicted on body, heart, mind, and soul.