how deep we mourn

Over the last few months, I’ve found myself struggling with all of the violence that comes up in the news over and over again.  How so much of it is related to the deep injustices that folks my age and my color were raised to think we’d gotten past.  Racism is dead!  We’re colorblind!  We have people of all sorts of different colors in different positions… we elected Obama!

First, I remember 2001.  And lots of people told me I needed to be scared of people who are Muslim.  Turns out that’s not good – I’ve met and loved lots of folks who celebrate the Islamic faith – my next door neighbors, students I taught in my classes.  Good, hard working, thoughtful and giving people.  I learned more about the tradition, and found beauty in the words of the Quran.

Then 2008 came.  And lots of people lost their jobs and livelihood.  I was told over and over again not to be scared.  And yet we lost 8.8 million jobs, and there’s another 7 million who have just thrown in the towel.  And so now there are even more people hoping that their fast food job will be sufficient, and hoping that when things got better, they’d get better, too.  They haven’t.

And then came the deaths.  Trayvon Martin.  Eric Garner.  Michael Brown.  Tamir Rice.  And those are the ones that get the most airplay.  And so many more young black and brown boys not getting the opportunities they deserve.  AND PEOPLE HAVE BEEN NOTING THIS FOR NEARLY 40 YEARS.  And if we’re honest, even longer.  But again, we are in an era of new thinking!  Civil Rights!  Colorbindness!  And equal justice for all… of a specific color, or of a particular profession.

And yesterday, two NYPD officers lost their lives from a man who felt it was his place to dispense his own version of justice.  And I mourn and find myself as angry at this as I do every single other circumstance in 2014 that has led to this general disarray.

Amos was a prophet in a time of incredible prosperity in Israel.  It’s one of my favorite books of prophesy (in part because of one of the best slams in all of Scripture), because of this:

Amos 5:18-25

Let Justice Roll Down

¹⁸ Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord!
    Why would you have the day of the Lord?
It is darkness, and not light,
¹⁹     as if a man fled from a lion,
    and a bear met him,
or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall,
    and a serpent bit him.
²⁰ Is not the day of the Lord darkness, and not light,
    and gloom with no brightness in it?

²¹ “I hate, I despise your feasts,
    and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
²² Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
    I will not accept them;
and the peace offerings of your fattened animals,
    I will not look upon them.
²³ Take away from me the noise of your songs;
    to the melody of your harps I will not listen.
²⁴ But let justice roll down like waters,
    and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

²⁵ “Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? ²⁶ You shall take up Sikkuth your king, and Kiyyun your star-god—your images that you made for yourselves, ²⁷ and I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,” says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts.

Repeatedly, Amos calls out those who thought they were living a faithful life through loud and showy displays of piety.  God saw it all as sham, and Amos made sure that they knew it.  God (and I believe this is the actually the official commentary) did not give a shit about anything people were doing – the fattened calves, the songs, the things that were part of the law that was guiding the people for years that God commanded… any of it.  So everytime some white kid wants to protest because it’s a chance to tell a story to their kids or that they’re “just trying to do some good” and making sure folks see it and doing any of it as a form of worship?  My guess is if it’s not attached some deeper sense of Justice, God doesn’t care.

God cared about justice.  For the poor.  For the oppressed.  For the innocent.  For the ignored.  For the folks who no one really liked.  Otherwise, everything the people of Israel were doing was simply noise and distraction.  And this was not meant to be a violent, vigilante justice, but one that brought peace.  It’s why people were called to leave wheat for the poor and foreigner.  It’s why debts were supposed to be cleared every seven years.  It’s why Jubilee exists.

Justice is not fear of whole people because of the few who may do wrong.

Justice is not excusing the few who may do wrong because they are wealthy or powerful or supposed arbiters of justice.

Justice is not vengeance.

I write this because I’m a tired, disillusioned man.  I was raised in a promise that things were better, and that we were better.  It isn’t and we’re not.  And I have a son that I watch playing with pure joy, surrounded by love, and I think how I’m going to protect him while showing him that he needs to do what he can in his own way to seek the betterment of those who were not protected.  And in spite of all of this, I believe even more in a God who deeply loves this world and wants the justice of Amos to roll mighty through the land, overwhelming and sweeping away structures that cannot withstand the flood.

I write this because I all too often lack the belief of shalom, but still hope it in day after day.

Maybe you do, too.  And to the folks who do – please keep walking.  Don’t let any of this stop you from your current Emmaus.  There continues to be so much that God will teach and show, and Jesus is with us despite our inability to see him.  We know the story, and we need to continue to tell it to everyone walking with us.

Because on days like today, I need to be reminded of the story.

garbage and whimper (sopa and pipa)

In case you’ve tried in the last few hours to check something out on Wikipedia, you’ll note that there’s a big, blacked out screen taking you to information regarding SOPA and PIPA.  In case you’ve not heard much about it, here’s a good article from Al-Jazeera in regards to the ban.

There are plenty of folks that are way wiser than me who are making thoughtful arguments about why SOPA and PIPA are bad, and I tend to agree.  If one is spending so much time being worried about whether something on their site is pirated, it will allocate precious energy away from creativity and innovation.  I’d rather not have Wikipedia wasting time on that – we see Jimmy Wales’ face more often than we’d like to now, imagine if he had to hire a bunch more staff just to check links?

I’m a person who came into his internet maturity just as Napster was in its heyday.  As such, my definitions of moral piracy are probably further down the continuum than a lot of folks, but that doesn’t mean I don’t see a value in correcting a distribution system that also stifles creativity – at least the way it’s done now.  Open sourcing, pay-what-you-want music distribution, and fee-based services like Netflix and Spotify have taken steps to move with culture and the shift in technology.  It is, in fact, possible to curtail piracy, but I think we need to recognize that it is as much a part of our lives as dubbing cassettes was 20 years ago.

As it’s been with the Occupy movement and other groans of “the-world-is-not-how-it-should-be” right now, I think that the business leaders who are trying to make decisions in the interest of their shareholders need to see what kind of economic value judgements have changed in the last generation.  If someone doesn’t want to wait the 56 days required for a new DVD, it’s easier to download it from elsewhere.  It’s too easy now.  The alternative for Warner Bros and other is either to bend to the will of the consumer, or lose money.  I believe that as time goes along, this will become a greater reality.

In the end, I think about my grandfather with his laptop at home.  I’ve taught him at least a half a dozen times to check his email, to learn how to type a letter, and to conduct simple web searches.  I would not expect him to provide thoughtful guidance on technological policy in the US.  And yet, we have individuals who are not too far off my grandfather’s age and their bedfellows determining how the internet should be policed.  It doesn’t make sense.  We do need a change, it’s true; we need the experts in the field to provide us with a thoughtful alternative.

SOPA and PIPA are garbage and whimper in Sweedish, respectively.