Then I see the Amtrak employees moving crowds through the train station – barked orders, patrolled lines, the confused eyes of the passengers. There was nothing wrong with the treatment, absolutely nothing at all. But in it I see the slippery slope that became what Corrie described. Humans, all of us, in everything we do.

Is that comforting, or scary? Maybe both.

This led to rumination about Dr. King’s shift to anti-poverty and anti-Vietnam War preaching, and the rejection by young people of his reliance on nonviolence. I wondered if there were a correlation: the young’s rejection of nonviolence when the country was in a paroxysm of war.

I came across an excerpt from a book entitled Protest, Power and Change, by authors Powers, Vogele, Kruegler. The authors cite Dr. King’s referencing the questions of young black men who saw the Vietnam War as evidence of the country’s dominant values. The book quotes Dr. King: “I knew that never again could I raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today, my own government.”

We are social creatures. One day we will understand that we pass between us things other than germs. Violence is one of those things. So is love. Individually and collectively – micro/macro – we get to decide.

Which one will I choose?

here’s to creative synthesis . . .

Here’s to creative synthesis . . .

I was outraged – how dare a cop give me a ticket in front of my own house? I asked around and everyone said, yeah, that cop is kinda crazy. I decided to go to court and give them whatfor. On the way, in the next block of my street, I saw a parked police car . . . facing the wrong direction.

Never before had I sat through criminal court. One by one, violators facing loss of their licenses stepped forward to plead their case. One couldn’t get her child to daycare without a license. Another couldn’t make it to his job. One had a sick relative who needed healthcare transportation. I was a lawyer. I was there “on principle.”

By the time my turn came, I no longer cared. It was ridiculous, really, for me to huff and puff, wasting the court’s time when other people’s lives were falling apart. I sputtered a few things, and the judge told me to pay the fine. Luckily he did not, for whatever reason, assess me court costs.

I thought of this today as I sat through hearing after hearing at 201 Poplar for “driving on a suspended license.” I can’t tell you how much time this took up. The judge threw the book at one fellow who was cited for driving with a suspended license on his way to court for his hearing on driving with a suspended license. I think everyone with a suspended license must just drive with their fingers crossed, hoping they don’t get stopped.

I don’t have an opinion on this, except to say that the criminal justice system struck me this morning as form over substance. We—by which I mean me, who has always praised the theory of our system—we place our trust in the form we’ve rigged up, and don’t look at how shaky the reality is. Maybe I’m jaundiced due to the rusty way I saw the system herk and jerk this morning. For whatever reason, it seems to me that when it comes to the criminal justice system, we are driving on a suspended license.

New blog feature: I’ll name a book when I complete it. All comments welcome. Catching me up so far this year:

The Emerging Church, Phyllis Tickle
Pogo’s Sunday Book, Walt Kelly
Coming of Age in Mississippi, Anne Moody

Here’s to creative synthesis . . .

Maybe your path is to educate about poverty, explain how folks arrived there, describe the terrible difficulty in getting out. Maybe my path lies in handing out food packets to my neighbors in need, as my sister does. Or, as my other sister does, employing those who come to her in need of work. Or—what kind of sense does THAT make?—facilitating a writing group for the homeless.

The answer lies in the question, which is not, what are you supposed to do, but what am I supposed to do?

here’s to creative synthesis

(the title of this post uses quotes around “Less Fortunate” because it is often a misstatement that relies on econominc status to define someone, but I’m not sure the quotes are coming through)

Now, I say: yeah, that’s you. Of course you’re afraid—you’re first reaction is always fear. That’s okay. Go ahead, do what needs to be done, afraid or not. Or sometimes I circle ‘round. Give myself time to recover from my first, fearful, reaction. Waiting for the fear to subside, creating room for the more-considered reaction to push through.

From the outside, these reactions might look the same—the job gets done—but they are worlds apart. Because the problem with the first approach is that it’s too easy to logically justify not doing what scares you. Welllllll . . . your clever brain says as the fear begins billowing inside of you, it isn’t that important. No one cares about this but you. It won’t make a difference in the world, the world will keep turning, and, besides, you have so many things on your agenda that need to get done. Don’t worry about it.

Thus do the very small, crucially important things that God puts in your path get blown off.

Fear wins.

“Do Not Be Afraid?” Hell, I’m Piglet. I am the fount of fear. I will be afraid. I just won’t let it overcome me. I will keep moving into the next thing—which will scare me, until it doesn’t, then I’ll move into the next thing, which will scare me, until . . .

Maybe I’m not “supposed” to be afraid, but I am. Only when I began acknowledging this truth about myself was I able to more successfully do what needed to be done.

here’s to creative synthesis . . .