Sometimes we can choose our inconveniences.
I was watching a video late last night, far past midnight, and stopped about half-way through because it was one o’clock or so in the morning. Released by Paramount, I Am MLK, Jr., is a powerful new (2018) film about the life of the man who shaped America and was murdered for it.
One thing that struck me, again, was the immediacy and fragility of the Civil Rights Movement. It was a seat-of-your-pants operation with multiple streams and leaders, even though MLK had become, for many, the leader, the Man for Justice. I’m sure there was planning — the councils and commissions comprised serious people — and there was organizing and direction. But choosing the next thing? Chance and circumstance.
There were plenty of situations and events to protest in America. Which one to choose? One spoiler: America was a target-rich environment, and there was a committed body of affected people would not shrink back from doing something; the plans were sometimes frantic only because there was too much to respond to. What these people, these Americans with paper-thin civil rights, were doing was marching and praying protesting and demanding what was rightfully theirs.
I’ll let you watch the video and see what I’m seeing.
I went to bed thinking about justice and participation in the work of justice. For me, the pursuit of justice is a heady, life-giving thing: it is more than existing; it is reaching for something that matters. Working towards justice is something that will benefit everyone, really, but most especially those whom I walk with and am friends with or see to be oppressed and marginalized and excluded. We can’t be free until all of us are free. “If a Black man cannot find justice, then no one has justice” (Eric Butler, creator of the film Circles). It is heady and exciting to live for something that is an eternal value: justice.
And I can turn it off and go to bed, only to pick it up again when I find it convenient.
I can walk in and out of justice, and not only am I almost entirely unscathed by the encounter, no one in my tribe would judge me for returning to my roots, for coming to my senses. “You did what your heart called you to do. You were doing good things. It’s valuable to show your friends that you love them enough to walk with them and live with them.”
Let’s be honest, though. I can go back to my safe house and my safe community and my safe career and even my safe life just by driving a dozen or so miles. I can go back to my church, my work, my circle of friends, talk about all the things that I “did,” receive praise and admiration for being “on the edge” and “pro-justice” and all that. But inside I know my tribe sees my work as a silly aberration, because really, can’t we all just get along and be nice to each other? Stop bringing up unpleasant things and focus on what unites us. Stay positive and look back to see how far we’ve come today…
This is always there, tempting me. So much of my life cocoons me and allows for my temporary visits.
But —
My friends who are in justice work are in it because it is their lives that are at stake. Their families. Their comfort and hope and happiness. Their rightful access to the blessings of liberty that I live in without speedbumps or borders.
I don’t think I’m ever going to have to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly. I get to choose to do so when it’s convenient, when it doesn’t tire me, when it doesn’t conflict with shows and dinners and bonfires and vacations. I have a life, you know.
I’m not beating myself up over this, to be sure. I am who I am — white, male, cis-gendered, Christian, married, American, employed. I do what I do because I’m moved by something in me that says justice matters, that my friends matter, that our collective happiness and morality depend upon us all having access to the blessings of liberty.
Still, I can walk in and out as I please, and I don’t know if that will ever change.
So when I do walk with my friends, I do so carefully. I know I can walk away and “come home.” I’m trying to walk with integrity, with the full knowledge that I cannot make myself obedient tomorrow, that today is all I can work with.
Today I will walk in justice, and today I will ask my friends to let me in, and today I acknowledge that my commitment to justice is a convenience.
Maybe some day I’ll figure out how to plunge all-in and stay in. For now, I have to accept that I have to choose, and hope that my friends know that so much of my work is the work of a summer soldier and sunshine patriot who has great intentions to be faithful in all things.
Also posted at https://medium.com/@stephenmatlock/walking-in-and-out-of-justice-def4b62ef3ab