Monday, October 6, 2008

Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, October 7, 2008


If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen
the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail
of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not
appreciate your neutrality.

- Archbishop Desmond Tutu, servant and prophet, born on this day, 1931


Fair and reasonable. That is one of the meanings of just.

One of the great problems with institutionalized religion is that it often moves away from it’s founding principles - just as had happened with the American Constitution and Bill of Rights. I think one of the things that drew me to the Anglican/Episcopal Church as a young person was it’s clear witness that it’s polity was based on Scripture, Tradition, and …. Reason.

Oppression is the weapon of the ones with power. In our time, right now, those with power and wealth throughout the World, most often in collusion with the political power elite (together, the elephant) have succeeded in standing on the tail of the vast majority of us mice with a few bucks trying to make a living. (Yes, in this we share some responsibility.) Whatever we are forced to do to keep the whole shebang from collapsing, the elephant must be held accountable for our tail. This is just, reasonable, fair.

If many of us are hurting today and into the future by the unjust greed of the manipulators of money in our world today, may it at least remind us of one thing.

Human beings all over the world are being ground down, oppressed, dehumanized, and enslaved by injustice ….. by all kinds of powerful masters. You know who they are.

They will not appreciate our neutrality.

Nor will the God who said in the Bible, Let justice roll down like rivers.

Brian+

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