Truth and Justice, Part 1

Jake and I have been great friends for over 20 years and have shared a lot of ‘journey’ together in that time.  He has witnessed me at my worst and still stood by me.  Not many are privileged with that kind of bond.  We are most generally in agreement and share many of the same dreams.  But one of the differences between us is his passion to help people understand the end times and how we should respond to what’s taking place.  While I benefit from his passion and glean fresh understanding, my passion tends to lean more towards what I would identify closest as ‘truth and justice’.

From my youth, I have been troubled by what I perceive as injustice.  As I grew older the reality hit that we live in a world that is continually unjust, unfair, and untruthful.  While I cannot change the fact, I can still write my thoughts in hopes that somewhere in the process, it might help the cause in some small way.

In high school a history teacher made the random comment that “we all now know that Jesus Christ was a homosexual”.  I leaped to my feet and challenged him as being a fool.  He kicked me out of class so I went straight to the Supe’s office where I met with him and my dad (a pastor).  The Supe being a good Catholic was outraged and immediately summoned the teacher over the intercom.  I was sent back to class and the teacher returned with massive apologies.  We found out later that his comment had put his job in jeopardy.  This was the 70’s so his tenure was only as good as the Supe decided.

While attending a Christian college, we always complained about how bad the food was.  So I do the research and find out that while we were being charged $400 (not exact numbers due to memory loss) per term for food, the school was spending $250.  There I am with a couple other students raising a stink about the injustice, and almost get booted from school.

One of the most impacting movies I can recall watching was ‘And Justice For All’ starring Al Pacino.  There was a scene where he stands up in court after being told he was ‘out of order’ and passionately declares that the judge and the whole court procedure was ‘out of order’.  It was such a forceful scene that the words still ring in my brain.

Today while I find myself mostly a conservative if a definition is even warranted, I am troubled by the lack of integrity in so many of the stories circulating by way of the internet.  As it turns out, I find a large portion of the stories to be made up, including many coming from my fellow conservative brethren.  Obvious to me, this runs rampart on both sides of the aisle.  I remember when Bill was still running for President and Hillary made the declaration that they were victims of the ‘right wing conspiracy’.  No one ever knew what that was but she was effective in portraying the lie.  Truth doesn’t seem to be important when selfish ambition is involved.  But again, this wasn’t marketed only by the Clintons.

I have many stories but the point is ‘truth and justice’.  Not one political group or religious organization has attained a very high level of truth and justice.  We may have elements, but the reality still evades us.  Man simply can’t seem to do a very good job of overcoming this human weakness, due to selfish ambition, developing an inbred habit of looking out for number one.  It’s only as we acknowledge the fact that we are simply incapable of being completely truthful, fair and just without some kind of help from outside ourselves that we can even approach the idea with any success.

Part 2 is my exploration of truth and justice.  Why society including politics and the church have failed at this.  My own failings and how I have worked through some personal challenges.  Happy trials, I mean happy trails.

Paul