Multi-faceted Justice (1): Create Peace
Blessed are those who create peace.
Matthew 5:9
Justice, like love, is a multi-faceted jewel. I love how Richard Stearns and Timothy Keller could write two books, on essentially the same topic, which are completely different from one another. While I learn more toward one (prioritizing areas of absolute poverty), one thing I appreciated about Keller’s book was his closing chapter Peace, Beauty, and Justice. I love how he weaves these three together, showing them essentially as multi-facets of one beautiful jewel.
Keller writes,
“God created all things to be in a beautiful, harmonious, interdependent, knitted, webbed relationship to one another. Just as rightly related physical elements form a cosmos or a tapestry, so rightly related human beings form a community. This interwovenness is what the Bible calls shalom, or harmonious peace” (173)
Shalom, the biblical word for peace means “complete restoration, a state of the fullest flourishing in every dimension–physical, emotional, social, and spiritual–because all relationships are right, perfect, and filled with joy.”
This is the sacred mundane. Essentially living the sacred mundane means living a seamless life of shalom, first in our hearts and homes, and then in our cities, country, and world. To jump to generosity without first pursuing shalom is to miss the depth and dimension of truly doing justice. We seek peace in our bodies, in our finances, in our parenting and marriage and relationships. With our friends and neighbors, with our habits and in our hearts. We move outward to seek peace with our communities, all the while giving whatever we can to seek the peace of those overseas.
And here’s the cool thing–there are different ways to seek shalom in different contexts, which means that you can kind of contribute to them all at once.
- I seek shalom in my heart by abiding in the Vine. Confession, prayer, lifestyle repentance, gratitude, grace. It all brings shalom within my heart.
- I seek shalom in my home by speaking words that are kind and life-giving. By honoring and respecting my man. By lovingly and consistently discipling my kids. By teaching my children to be peace-makers with each other.
- I seek shalom in my neighborhood by simply being friendly to the same-sex couple down the street. Giving a warm smile and embrace. Praying for others. Taking fresh bread. Talking in the yard. Smiling.
- I seek shalom in my church by supporting my leaders. Praying for elders, contributing, serving, cultivating kindness and grace.
- I seek shalom in my community (at this stage in my life) by simply being all there in every encounter. A smile and “how are you today?” A choice to linger and not rush. A chat at the park. A casual invite to church.
- I seek shalom in the world by supporting (primarily financially) Africa New Life, World Vision, Compassion, and Next Generation Ministries.
See how fun this is? All of it matters. My smile won’t do anything for a starving child in Africa who cannot see my face. But giving a dollar will. Giving a dollar won’t do anything for a stressed and over-busy mom at the park. But a smile and unhurried chat just might.
Shalom is so beautiful because it’s so multi-faceted. Giving is so fun because there is such a variety of things to give—from a dollar to a smile to a firm but loving swat on the bottom (in the case of our little lambs), we have countless ways each day to promote peace wherever we are. Different situations call for different actions–how fun that our God gives us an endless supply of resources to disburse in His name!
Thanks for journeying with me as we do justice and create peace. How can you, today, create shalom in your sphere–heart, home, and world beyond?
Swallowed Up
I’ve been swallowed up. This must be what it’s like to be my Grandma, or any really really old person who has to leave their home and take a puny boxful of their life’s belongings to a retirement home, where they are taken care of and treated like an child, patted on the head and told to do crossword puzzles or knit washcloths no one will use. They must wonder what to do. No wonder they watch TV all the time. They must cry a lot and think about the years when they were young, valued, busy. When they had the freedom to drive, to go out with friends, to clean their own homes or plant a garden. It must feel frustrating to have nothing but a potted plant to water or at best a tomato plant on their allotted 2-foot square plot of garden in the retirement home courtyard. No wonder they’re grumpy all the time. Although the advantage they have is that at least maybe they’re so tired by that point in their life that they don’t care as much. Their bones ache so much perhaps they’re happy, sometimes at least, to have their life taken care of for them. It must still be hard. So hard.
That’s how I feel right now. I’ve been swallowed up. Somewhere in the last year Kari was swallowed up and now she sits inside someone else’s life. I still get glimpses of what it’s like to be me. On Friday when we hung out with Aaron and Candi in Corvallis and I saw my friend Grace—I got to be me. On Saturday when we went to McMinnville and saw precious friends and laughed and drove and played with Dutch—I got to be me. Last week when I drove up to my friend Melissa’s and went for a hike around the lake by her house—I got to be me.
But last July I drove away from me—at least that’s how it felt. I really just drove away from our home, but we entered a new life. We now live with my parents. We eat off my parents’ plates. We eat food from their refrigerator. We park in their garage. We sit on their couch. We also live in a new town. It is their town. The town is full of their friends. We also attend a new church. It is their church. The church is full of their friends. Jeff teaches a class on Tuesday nights. The class is largely a group of my parents and their friends. In July I went from being Kari Patterson, to being Bill & Karen’s daughter. I went from being wife and mother to daughter … again. Not that I have ever quit being a daughter, but I have, until this point, been a grown daughter. Now I am not quite grown anymore. I am living with my parents again, surrounded by photos of my childhood, feeling as if I’m awkwardly suspended between two lives—one where I am wife and mom, one where I am still a child. Dangling—that’s how I feel—dangling, never quite sure how to act and how to be because I am no longer me. I’ve been swallowed up.
And in this new church I have no fit. There appears to be no Kari-shaped hole that I can discern. There is a huge Jeff-shaped hole, which has been filled, and Bill and Karen shaped holes that have already been filled, and I am standing outside the front door, watching, pretending to be busy … but I’m really just watching and wondering where I went.
Dutch provides great joy—but really my role of irreplaceable mommy isn’t that big anymore. Oma and Papa provide a lot more fun, and since I leave him with them one day a week, somehow it feels that lifetimes go by while I’m away and I’ve missed a significant chunk. “He’s dong such-and-such now,” they say. “Oh, I see,” I reply, “I see I must have missed it.” But this time, this one day away, is the one golden, glorious, beautifully crafted portion of my life where I get to be me—school! At school I am wholly and completely Kari Patterson. I have value, purpose, vision. I have meaningful work to accomplish, goals to achieve, deadlines to meet. At school I am not swallowed up!
So if only, I tell myself, if only we could move out. Somehow I could create a haven, a home for our family where we could be a family again. Somehow I could be me! Somehow I could be all grown up again. I could cook meals for my family and we could eat off our own dishes! I could decorate and clean and beautify our home, or I could make a mess and not clean it up for three days—because it’s home! Home home home! We could come home! I could be ok not having a place to serve at church just yet, if only I had a place to rest my head where I could somehow just be myself. It’s as if I’ve spent ten years developing into a woman and then all of a sudden I’ve been told that those ten years didn’t happen, and I need to forget everything that’s taken place during that time.
But we can’t move out until we know if Jeff will have a job at the church. We have no income; we can’t move out until we know if we will have an income. So we wait. “Soon,” they say. “Soon.” So every stupid Tuesday, as Jeff goes into the church office for his meetings, every stupid Tuesday, I tell myself to not get my hopes up. Every stupid Tuesday I wait for him to call—at 2:45—and tell me how his meetings went. Every stupid Tuesday I hope they will give him an answer—that they will give him an answer that will give me my life back. And I convince myself—every stupid Tuesday—that it doesn’t matter and that I’ll be ok no matter what. And every stupid Tuesday he calls and I listen as he says, “Yeah, my meetings went great …” and he begins telling me the details of the staff meeting and then my stomach does that thing—that thing where I feel sick and where that stupid lump comes up in my throat and I realize I’ve done it again: I’ve gotten my hopes up. And then I do what I know I will do. I ask, “Did he say anything about …?” and Jeff knows what I mean and he gets quiet then says, “No, Sauce, no. I’m sorry.” And then I get silent and cry, and I feel stupid all over again because I realize I’ve done it again—I’ve gotten my stupid hopes up that sometime, one of these times, we’re going to get some good news that someone will give him a job and we’ll get to move out and I can have my life back again. And I do it every stupid Tuesday. And every stupid Tuesday I chide myself and say “You’re supposed to wait on God, not on them. Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint.” And then I sit and wonder when the strength will come and why I’m weary and fainting. Every stupid Tuesday.
So, this is just me—raw and unedited, trying to sort through these thoughts and feelings. I guess the question I have to wrestle with is this: If it brought glory to God for me to never “have my life back” again would I embrace that? If it glorified God for me to never again have my own home or niche or place to fly, would I obey? Theoretically the answer’s always “Yes, God.” But is it really? I guess that’s the question for me today.
Middle-Class in Spirit?
I like driving in the middle lane. In the slow lane you’re just asking for frustration, and in the fast lane you’re just asking for a fine. Of course it’s funny how our driving habits so reflect our personalities. I’m kind of a middle-lane girl, you could say. Law-abiding, cautious, but not about to go any slower than I absolutely have to.
And I, like most of you I’d guess, am a middle-class American. Not too poor, not too rich, just the way I like it. My house is just slightly smaller than the average American size, we have just under the average number of kids (it’d be hard to have 2.6 kids), we make just slightly more than the average single-income. Any way you slice it–we’re the middle of the middle. And I like it, it’s pretty safe here in the middle.
Safe. Safe from what? It’s easy to see the dangers of extreme lower and extreme upper class. The poor have nothing and the rich have too much. But what are the dangers of life in the middle?
Apathy?
In Generous Justice, Tim Keller makes an interesting point about why more people are not actively involved in doing justice in our world. If we know the facts and have the means, why are we not acting?
Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3), meaning that God’s blessing and salvation come to those who “acknowledge spiritual bankruptcy.” When we are poor in spirit we understand that “we are deeply in debt before God and have no ability to even begin to redeem yourself.” But what if we aren’t poor in spirit? We may not be so off as to believe that we have secured our own salvation, but what if we begin to believe, oh so subtly, that God should answer our prayers and bless us because of all the good things we’ve done.
Could there be a dangerous place somewhere in the middle?
Keller says we could be called, “middle-class in spirit.” We believe, perhaps, that God has saved us by grace, but we still are fairly certain that we’re not the worst of the worst. Our need for grace? Mmm… somewhere in the middle. Keller says,
My experience as a pastor has been that those who are middle-class in spirit tend to be indifferent to the poor, but people who come to grasp the gospel of grace and become spiritually poor find their hearts gravitating toward the materially poor. To the degree that the gospel shapes your self-image, you will identify with those in need” (102).
My first response when I read these words is to think, “Ok, then how can I become poor in spirit?” To be materially poor we’d need to give stuff away, so how can we get spiritually poor?
[Smile as it dawns on me.]
We already are.
We don’t need to get rid of anything to become spiritually poor. We already are. All we need to do is see Truth. Embrace Christ. Understand the reality of our spiritual condition and the glorious gospel of grace. What moves us out of apathy?
The gospel.
How do we motivate people to serve the poor? The gospel. How do we compel people toward compassion? The gospel. How do we inspire people to give away their material possessions and store up treasure in heaven? The gospel.
Middle-class spirits are a breeding ground for apathy. For pride. For entitlement. For consumerism. For indulgence. I can keep pulling up these weeds, frustrated and struggling that they keep surfacing yet again, when really I just need new soil.
A spirit that’s poor.
Blessed are the poor in Spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.
Friends, we can give away every penny that we have and still not be poor in spirit.
Let’s not settle for the motions when God really wants the motive. A bankrupt heart overflowing in gratitude, overflowing in grace.
The glorious gospel on display: feeding mouths and hearts.
Safe to forget
“The only mothers it is safe to forget on mothers day are the good ones.”
Ha! Isn’t that the truth? Jeff and I are so blessed to both have “good ones” in the mom department, but isn’t it true in all areas that there are those in your life who are “safe” to forget and those who are not? For those who are not, there is an understood expectation in that relationship that you better do xyz on such-and-such day or so-and-so will be sorely disappointed. And then how do you wind up feeling?
Exhausted.
Oh my. I always want to be a person who is “safe to forget”!
Of course I was not forgotten yesterday but blessed. Both my husband and parents gave me a dear little gift, but it wasn’t until late last night I realized the secret of being “safe to forget.”
I sat in the old cream rocking chair in Heidi’s room. Both kids had asked to be rocked, and yes! was my answer to both. So they filled up my lap, spilling over, arms wrapped around each other and faces nuzzled into my neck. I rocked, kissing the tops of their heads, unable to speak, not wanting to move, knowing this moment would last only moments. I closed my eyes and knew:
These are my gifts.
The term “mother’s day gift” is redundant. Who needs a gift when one is a mother? The gifts are already given. They have pulses and eyelashes and puppy-dog breath. They are exhilarating and exhausting and infuriating and intoxicating. They are gifts. It’s wonderful that my dear husband gave me a gift yesterday, but the gift has already been given.
That’s what makes us safe to forget.
Some of us, myself at times, forget that a zillion beautiful gifts have already been given. When we forget, we expect everyone else to give them to us. We might not expect a gift wrapped in paper or bow, but we expect a creative day or a special surprise or just the right words or someone to read our minds and give us what we want and do not say. And then at the end of the day you know how we feel?
Exhausted. (And so does everyone else.)
What if, instead, we realized each day that the gifts are already given. On mother’s day we have the gifts we hold upon our laps. On a birthday we have the gift of LIFE, of breath, of being born and still being alive. On an anniversary we have a marriage–glorious picture of divine love–no matter how imperfect it is. On Christmas we have God with us!! Who needs anything else? On Valentine’s Day we have the Lover of our Souls. On Easter we have a risen Lord.
Every holiday celebrates a gift that is already given.
And if we spent our precious time celebrating these already-gifts, I wonder what the result might me …
We might become safe to forget.
We might even forget about ourselves.
Oh blessed state, there is no joy like that.