Women washing clothes in a ditch along the main road, Mumbai, India, Source Agencia Brasil, Author Hajor at en.wikipedia (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0-Brazil License)
One million people live in the Dharavi slum of Mombai memorialized in Slum Dog Millionaire [1]. As the film indicated, only one percent of the houses here have their own toilets. Whole families live in bare concrete rooms, only a few miles from the palatial homes of Bollywood stars.
Yet, there are over 20,000 micro-businesses, in this congested area. And recycling is the single biggest industry – employing 50,000 people in plastics, alone. Salaries, however, are slim; hours, long; the work, arduous and sometimes dangerous.
India is not the only third world country with a garbage problem. Garbage removal in impoverished countries is unsystematic, at best.
Garbage may be discarded alongside the nearest road, or in random lots. Some garbage may be burned by those disposing of it. More often than not, garbage accumulates wherever it is discarded and left undisturbed. The result can be both noxious and harmful to health.
Now, however, garbage is holding out new hope to some distressed communities. Non-profits like ChildFund are setting up “garbage banks”, a variation on the recycling businesses in Mombai. Read more…
Coventry Cross of Nails, National Cathedral, Washington DC, Source http://www.flickr.com/photos/23165290@N00/6623015469/, Author Tim Evanson (Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic)
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits” (Matt. 7: 15-16).
The Southern Poverty Law Center currently lists over 750 active hate groups in the United States. These include Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazi, white nationalist, white power skinhead, and neo-Confederate groups. They, also, include what are termed “Christian Identity” groups.
This should be of great concern to us.
Despite adopting the label, Christian Identity groups are actually anti-Semitic racists – not Christians. Loosely affiliated by a twisted theology of their own making, Christian Identity groups are usually hostile to fundamentalist and evangelical Christians because of the belief by such Christians that the return of Jews to Israel is integral to the fulfillment of end-time prophecy.
The names adopted by Christian Identity groups are innocuous enough: Faith Baptist Church and Ministry, Watchmen Bible Study Group, Kinsman Redeemer Ministries. But they spew a hate-filled venom combining distorted Bible verses and outright lies.
You will remember that, when Satan tempted Christ in the wilderness, the adversary likewise misconstrued Scripture (Matt. 4: 1-11).
The challenge for genuine Christians is to distinguish themselves from these hate groups. Christ, Himself, said, “ ‘By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another’ ”(John 13: 35). The Apostle John added, “In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother” (1 John 3: 10).
Scripture makes our task very clear. We are to love others. Not sneer at them, pontificate over them, or turn our backs on them.
If we truly believe that love is stronger than hate, we have to be prepared to live it. Those who believe the opposite are.
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“Christ Washing the Apostles’ Feet” by Dirck van Baburen (c. 1616), Gemaldegalerie, Berlin, Source Web Gallery of Art (Public Domain-Art, Age-100)
We are constantly being urged to compare ourselves to others.
If we fear there may be something lacking on our part, we are exhorted to rectify the perceived deficiency at once with newer cars, larger pools, faster boats, and more expensive homes. Better yet with miracle nostrums, cosmetic surgery, hair plugs, and younger wives.
This is deception on a grand scale. If we buy into it, we will never be satisfied with our lives, our relationships, or ourselves. Our priorities will be confined to our own ends, our energies directed to self-aggrandizement, and our time here wasted.
As Christians, we may consider ourselves above such things, immune to cultural influences. That, however, is a form of pride.
We compare gifts of the Spirit as if we had earned them. Those who speak in tongues criticize those who do not, and vice versa. Virtue is measured by readership, and merit by congregation size.
Paul cautioned, “There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord” (1 Cor.. 12: 4-5). This verse makes clear that gifts of the Spirit are entrusted to us for service to others. The full passage instructs us to view all gifts as of equal value.
We are not to seek praise for such gifts, and not to be discouraged because our gifts seem less “important” than those of someone else.
“For we dare not class ourselves or compare ourselves with those who commend themselves. But they, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise…But ‘he who glories, let him glory in the Lord.’ For not he who commends himself is approved, but whom the Lord commends” (2 Cor. 10: 12, 17-18).
I am reminded of the scene where the mother of the Apostles James and John asked that her sons be seated at Jesus’ right and left hand, in the next world. You will remember what the Lord said to His disciples:
“‘…[W]hoever desires to be great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave — just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many‘” (Matt. 20: 26-28).
Lord Jesus, forgive us our vanity. We are so easily tempted to focus on ourselves, rather than on serving others.
Help us to recognize this failing, and to resist the influences of a worldly culture. Shift our attention from the temporal to the eternal that we may use our time and our talents for Your glory and the good of others, as You intended.
Help us to realize our sufficiency is in You.
Amen
READERS CAN FIND MY VIEWS ON ABUSE AND ABUSE-RELATED ISSUES AT ANNA WALDHERR A Voice Reclaimed, Surviving Child Abuse
US Army 82nd Airborne Division, advancing in a snowstorm, Battle of the Bulge, WWII (PD-US federal govt.)
It is once again Memorial Day, a day honoring the men and women who gave their lives for this nation. We can and should give speeches in their memory, plant flags on their graves.
But the patriots who froze at Valley Forge, who landed on the beaches of Normandy, the heroes who lost an eye at Khe Sanh or a leg in Mosul, who gave their lives at Pork Chop Hill were not fighting for empty words.
They were fighting for their wives and children, for their brothers-in-arms. They were fighting for the American Dream – a colorblind dream of freedom and equality, a fair wage, sweat equity in a three-bedroom colonial or ranch, and the chance for their children to rise in the world.
That is a dream worth dying for. The rest of us will be the ones to decide whether or not it has become a pipedream.
“Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, The people He has chosen as His own inheritance” (Ps. 33: 12).
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“Joan of Arc” by Jules Bastien-Lepage (1879), Metropolitan Museum of Art (PD-Art, PD-Old)
We live at a time when terrorists (foreign and domestic) pride themselves on taking the lives of innocent men, women, and children then style themselves “martyrs” engaged in a holy war.
It may be worth recalling what devotion meant in the day and age of a real martyr.
During the Hundred Years War, an untutored peasant girl led a small French force to victory against a larger English army, lifting the siege of Orleans. It was from this battle that Joan of Arc derived her title as the Maid of Orleans.
Captured by the English in 1430, Joan was placed on trial for heresy and witchcraft. Questioned by church officials, Joan responded with amazing insight and unfailing faith. Despite that, she was burned at the stake at the age of nineteen.
Her testimony, however, was preserved. Here are a few excerpts:
A: I was thirteen when I had a Voice from God for my help and guidance. The first time that I heard this Voice, I was very much frightened; it was mid-day, in the summer, in my father’s garden…
Q: This Voice that speaks to you, it is that of an Angel, or of a Saint, or from God direct?
A: It is the Voice of Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret. Their faces are adorned with beautiful crowns, very rich and precious…
Q: What was the first Voice that came to you when you were about thirteen?
A: It was Saint Michael; I saw him before my eyes; he was not alone, but quite surrounded by the Angels of Heaven…
Q: Do you know if you are in the Grace of God?
A: If I am not, may God place me there; if I am, may God so keep me. I should be the saddest in all the world if I knew that I were not in the grace of God. But if I were in a state of sin, do you think the Voice would come to me? I would that everyone could hear the Voice as I hear it… Read more…
Medical ultrasound showing fetus in womb, Author Havelbaude at German language Wikipedia (CC-BY-SA-3.0-migrated)
Babies still in the womb can hear their mother’s voice as early as the 16th week of pregnancy.
There is some evidence that newborns recognize the sound of their mother’s voice from birth. Not only do they recognize her voice, babies prefer their mother’s voice to all other female voices.
Babies respond to the sound of their own name at about 5 months of age.
“ ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are Mine’ ” (Is. 43: 1).
Father, You know each one of us by name. You made us Your own before we yet had form or substance.
We have been bought and paid for. We have been redeemed from bondage. We have been saved by the blood of Your Son, Jesus Christ.
Whatever else may befall us in life, we cannot be lost for we know Your voice, and rest safely in Your loving arms.
Amen
READERS CAN FIND MY VIEWS ON ABUSE AND ABUSE-RELATED ISSUES AT ANNA WALDHERR A Voice Reclaimed, Surviving Child Abuse
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Prison cell, US Penitentiary, Fort Leavenworth, KS, Source http://www.miamiherald.com/graphics/rich_media/1027903.html (Public Domain as a work of the US federal government)
The American system of justice is the foremost in the world. We pour enormous resources into federal, state, and local investigative and law enforcement agencies, and the associated court structures. Even our system of justice, however, has its shortcomings.
In recent years, terrorism has increased the challenges exponentially. As resources are stretched to their limits, both wise and unwise decisions are being made in the effort to respond. This is an instance of the latter.
USA Today confirms that law enforcement agencies and prosecutors across the nation have unilaterally decided not to pursue well over 300,000 fugitives out of state [1]. That bears repeating.
State and local police and District Attorneys have abandoned many outstanding warrants, notifying the FBI that they will no longer be seeking extradition of hundreds of thousands of accused felons. This represents a 77% increase in an 18 month period.
Once these fugitives – accused rapists, murderers, and child molesters among them – have crossed a state border they will now, for all practical purposes, be home free. Read more…
Mamertine Prison, Rome, Author Chris 73 (CC BY-SA-3.0 Unported)
“Remember the prisoners as if chained with them – those who are mistreated – since you yourselves are in the body also” (Heb. 13: 3).
Before being put to death as enemies of the state, the Apostles Peter and Paul are thought to have been confined to the infamous Mamertine Prison (then known as the Tullianum).
Located on the Capitoline Hill in Rome, the Mamertine contains a spring on the lower level. Prisoners there were forced to stand, sit, and lie in the accumulated water. The saints were not disheartened. A tradition holds that Peter used the water for baptisms.
Sadly, our system of justice is still far from perfect. We most often lament this when those who appear guilty to us evade punishment, for one reason or another. Few of us have much sympathy for convicted felons. The temptation is to wish them good riddance, and banish any further thought for their welfare.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, however, reports that conditions at the East Mississippi Correctional Facility (EMCF) are barbaric [1]. A federal lawsuit initiated in 2013 alleges that the prison is grossly filthy and violent in the extreme, with prisoners at “grave risk of death and loss of limbs” [2].
The EMCF is a for-profit facility meant to provide intensive therapy to psychiatric prisoners. Many such prisoners are kept in long-term solitary confinement, sometimes for months or even years. Others are housed in rat-infested cells without working toilets. Prisoners may go without showers for weeks.
Rapes and gang violence are common at the EMCF. Prisoners have been known to light fires to draw the attention of guards, in an emergency. A number claim to have been denied necessary medication, with permanent detrimental consequences including blindness. Read more…
Title page of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”, Third Quarto (1611) (PD)
“…and by a sleep to say we end The heartache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to, ‘tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished.”
– William Shakespeare, “Hamlet”
Ethics and the Law
The law can be a challenging career, demanding commitment, sacrifice, and fortitude. What may be even more difficult to live with are the compromises the world will impose on us, in the course of our careers.
As lawyers, we are required to adhere to ethical tenets; as Christians, to moral standards even higher. There is no question about that. But if we seek diligently to practice within those boundaries, we will encounter opposition.
Conflict
We will be forced to fight for resources, yet against what seem to others profitable – if questionable – courses of action. We will argue over budgets with non-lawyers who do not see the value of our work.
We will confront internal politics that have nothing to do with protecting the clients, and everything to do with protecting private fiefdoms. We will work exhausting hours to offset staff reductions. We will risk our jobs, in the often fruitless attempt to convince management to change bad policies.
All this simply to do our jobs as they should be done.
Natural Shocks
The struggle is not, of course, confined to the legal profession. Men and women of integrity face it in the workplace, everyday. Defeats are among the “thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to,” as Shakespeare put it.
Which can be deeply discouraging.
But life still has meaning and purpose. It is not defined by the terms of an employer, but by the terms of an infinite God with whom all things are possible.
With the civil unrest over a police shooting in Ferguson, MO still fresh in memory, a scandal involving racist police video and texts in Fort Lauderdale, FL [1], and a questionable police shooting caught on camera this week, in North Charleston, SC, I offer you a portion of the speech by Pres. John F. Kennedy on what was ultimately signed into law as the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
In retrospect, two things are striking about this speech. Pres. Kennedy referred publicly to Scripture, actually relying on it for moral authority. That would not be considered politically correct these days. And the President called the issue of racial equality “as old as the Scriptures”. That statement is profound.
Hatred dates as far back as Hammurabi, as far back as Eden. Whether we pass it along by nature or nurture, hatred is part of mankind’s tainted legacy. That makes exorcising it all the more difficult. Each generation must decide for itself which side to take.
Fifty years have passed since this speech was made; a hundred and fifty, since a Civil War was fought over the issue of racial equality.
A black man has been elected President of the United States, but still that issue has not been fully put to rest. In fact, some of those opposed to the current president’s policies routinely use racial innuendo to mock him – as if they were the “cool kids” at school, sharing an inside joke rather than undermining our democracy.
We have not learned much, it seems.
“We are confronted primarily with a moral issue. It is as old as the Scriptures and it is as clear as the American Constitution. The heart of the question is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities, whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated…
One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice. They are not yet freed from social and economic oppression. And this Nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free.
Now the time has come for this Nation to fulfill its promise. The events in Birmingham and elsewhere have so increased the cries for equality that no city or state or legislative body can prudently choose to ignore them.
We face, therefore, a moral crisis as a country and as a people. It cannot be met by repressive police action. It cannot be left to increased demonstrations in the streets. It cannot be quieted by token moves or talk. It is a time to act in Congress, in your state and local legislative body and, above all, in all our daily lives…”
—
[1] Huffington Post, “Florida Cops Fired Over Racist Texts, KKK Video” by Andy Campbell, 3/22/15, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/22/cops-fired-racist-video_n_6918652.html.
READERS CAN FIND MY VIEWS ON ABUSE AND ABUSE-RELATED ISSUES AT ANNA WALDHERR A Voice Reclaimed, Surviving Child Abuse
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A Lawyer's Prayers 