fair or just?

Yesterday I was at a planning meeting for a 1st-8th grade summer camp that will focus on justice at a local church this summer. They really have some great ideas, it is centered around Micah 6:8, and I am coming to speak on the “walk humbly” day. (If you have any ideas for the 1st-4th graders for my hour session of time to be engaging, send them on over)

This team of adults was really excited to engage with these young people in exploring their spirituality and the call to justice. Smart people were coming up with these ideas but something didn’t sit right. It was thoughtful and real, but fair and just were in a different context.

Yes there is something to learn when one group of children get all the expensive toys and other children don’t get any and the reasons behind it. Seems unjust and unfair, the kids will understand this based on the activity and maybe can start thinking about it.

But then is justice and fairness all the children getting all the really expensive toys? Is that what we all want to work for?

I encouraged that we just focus on toys, instead of one group getting toys and the other picking up trash. While the realities of wealth may come into play in certain exercises, we need to be careful of the value judgments we make. I have seen other children with no toys at all play very happily, some work too or are just much more respectful about chores.

I think the kids will get fair, and maybe even really start to understand ways other people live. I think it’s a great first step. But we that are a step or two beyond that or who want to change the world… we need to think about what we are trying to change it to and what we have to work with. Sometimes changing this at one end, means the other end has to give up some things.

I struggle with justice that means you need to live like us. I struggle with it for many reasons, but honestly worldwide its just not sustainable. We got good words, but how do we learn to live like and with each other justly? And with all of us?