I recently participated in a panel discussion on social justice at a conference of about 1,400 people.  My presence, on the one hand, seemed to make a statement about how pathetically we all were doing with social justice, because our church-while making ever-more efforts in this area-still strikes me as on the front end of this conversation.

As-if I may say-are we all.  Three things seem true about most of our responses to justice issues.  (1) We're all for it!  Very few of us are openly rooting for injustice, and we all recognize that the world needs plenty of help, so the more justice the better.  (2) We're eager for someone else to do it!  We do, after all, have jobs (or studies or whatever).  We may have families.  We have other interests.  So, unless we personally are right in the thick of the injustice in question (I just spent a couple weeks in the West Bank and in Palestinian camps-people I met there don't feel so removed from the world of injustice as many an American does), it's hard to picture what we could do.  (3) We will promise one key form of support-we'll heartily judge folks we think perpetrate injustice or the lazy slobs who don't help out when they clearly could!

Friends of mine are about to return to their home country of Liberia.  Liberia, like so many post-conflict African countries, is a mess.  Here are a few recent comments from the BBC about Liberia:

"Around 250,000 people were killed in Liberia's civil war (about 8% of the population, equivalent to 50,000 or so people killed in just the city of Boston) and many thousands more fled the fighting. The conflict left the country in economic ruin and overrun with weapons. The capital remains without mains electricity and running water. Corruption is rife and unemployment and illiteracy are endemic. The UN maintains some 15,000 soldiers in Liberia. It is one of the organization's most expensive peacekeeping operations."

Warlords and boy soldiers are everywhere.  My friends are taking their family there to continue work in microfinance (the dad has just finished his studies at MIT on the subject) to offer some economic hope, start a bank and a university and, we hope, a church. 

Another friend of mine has just raised two million dollars in seed money to empower local African entrepreneurs to kickstart the economies of the poorest African countries.  (He'll start in Mozambique and work his way north, if all goes well.)  His stated goal: to revitalize the economies of each country in question.

Here at home, more and more folks I know are finding their way into making friends in nearby housing projects.  Initially, this raised suspicion from some local officials, as many of these visiting folks are in churches.  Was their goal some kind of craven proselytizing of people when they're in need?  Best as I can tell, this concern has vanished in the face of actual friendship being offered.  We recently heard from an official at another nearby project to the effect of, "Hey, why do they get all your attention?  Can you throw a little love our way?"

How do you respond to the kind of craziness (or "ambition"-I guess it depends on your perspective) of my friends? 

I'll tell you how I respond: it intimidates the heck out of me!  I've got a job that takes its share of hours!  I've got five kids!  I've got a few outside projects!  My job already involves taking notice of and caring about a fair amount of people, many of them strangers!  I've- 
And then, in the midst of full bellyaching about this, I have to step out of the way of my wife as she heads off to one of these projects to make some friends there as she teaches English as a second language.  

Evidently there's something in us that hankers not just for justice to exist, but for us to participate to some degree in bringing it about.  For some of us, the initial way in is by way of our money (hello, of all people, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett).  For others like my friends moving to Liberia, it envelops our whole lives. 

But, whatever form it takes, I'm believing for a first step for you and for me.