An update and the latest thoughts on lawyering, etc.

Lots going on lately. The pace here is picking up in life-giving ways. A climbing gym finally opened a week ago. It´s right on the way home and has given me back one of my favorite activities. Hanging out with people from church more, and finding more to do in the evenings in general. I’ve recently gotten into Lost, and am eating any negative words I might’ve said about it before. Season 1 is just full of genius. Maybe I’ll get frustrated later on, but for now it’s a great escape when I need one.


Pretty much every day I sit at my desk and am overcome by the feeling that I really ought to be playing music somewhere. Hopefully I can make this a reality sometime down the road. Big recent contributors to this feeling include: Chris Thile/Punch Brothers, Yonder Mountain String Band, Ray Lamontagne, Crooked Still, Justin Townes Earle, The Hot Club of Cowtown, Old Crow Medicine Show, and Son Volt – all pulsing through my earbuds. For now I’m going it alone and working on music as much as possible with my ample (though lately shrinking, thanks to the mentioned above) free time. I’m working through some flatpicking DVD’s by Steve Kaufman, two (or three?) time National Flatpicking Contest winner at Winfield (i.e. heaven on Earth, more specifically, in Kansas (where else would you look?)). I’ve been writing as much as I can, and am now working on charts for that fantasy band that I’ll surely form soon after returning to the states. I expect to make some demos in the next month too. Maybe I’ll put something up here for you all when they’re done.


I’ve been struggling with work lately. As in any internship, it has taken a long time to find my niche and figure out how I can contribute here. As I’ve finally found it (and indeed I have, I’m busily contributing in real ways these days), I’ve also determined that as much as I believe in the ends of this work, the means are mostly frustrating/boring/unchallenging/uncreative to me. It’s good to learn more about what I do and don’t like to do. And I guess that’s sort of part of the intern’s lot: do the tedious stuff that needs to get done but that no one wants/has the time to do. I’m okay with that for now, but looking forward to moving on to greener pastures. I now know how important it is to me that I work in smaller organizations that allow me to fill a more dynamic, creative, interactive role. Getting outside would be pretty great too. This is all good revelation. A big reason for coming here was to figure out if I wanted to be a lawyer, and now I know. If anything, this has been confirmed for me by some recent reading and interesting insights in Luke.

The National Revised Standard Version has Luke 11:46-52 like this (underlines added):


“46And he said, ‘Woe also to you lawyers! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not lift a finger to ease them. 47Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your ancestors killed. 48So you are witnesses and approve of the deeds of your ancestors; for they killed them, and you build their tombs. 49Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, “I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute”, 50so that this generation may be charged with the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world, 51from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be charged against this generation. 52Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.’”


Now, I don’t by any means intend to indict all lawyers, but Jesus is being pretty direct here, especially in that last verse. “Taken away the key of knowledge”? That sort of characterizes the legal system, doesn’t it? We have lawyers because the system is so complicated, senseless, and unnavigable without them. This often works to the disadvantage of the poor, who rarely have the means to challenge this system in a dignified, successful way. This is also why it’s important that organizations like IJM exist. We have lawyers committed to working against the tilt of this system to seek justice for the poor. They work within the system to overthrow its evil (wording too strong for you? go back to Luke) disposition.


I understand the necessity of organizations like IJM, but at least for me, in the ways that this and the following verses have spoken to me, I think Jesus is calling me to live according to another way of life – to see the Kingdom come and not engage with corrupt systems. Here’s Luke 12:11-12 and 57-59 (underlines added).


11When they bring you before the synagogues, the rulers, and the authorities, do not worry about how* you are to defend yourselves or what you are to say; 12for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that very hour what you ought to say.’


57 ‘And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right? 58Thus, when you go with your accuser before a magistrate, on the way make an effort to settle the case,* or you may be dragged before the judge, and the judge hand you over to the officer, and the officer throw you in prison. 59I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the very last penny.’


In 11-12, Jesus tells us to hold to God´s justice, and in 58, he tells us to avoid litigation.
Granted, of course, all of these verse could be applied to the support of IJM’s work, and I don’t mean to take that away. I have, however, felt a personal call to read these verses as I’ve stated. It’s hard to explain, but I’ve even felt this here at the mission. As I see the organizational inefficiencies and the usual bureaucracy that are bound to occur in any giant corporation or organization, I’ve felt a lot of resistance to simply towing the line.

I guess I’ve always been pretty independent. In some ways, that can be a bad thing – like if it were to keep me from being effective here at the mission, or in school, or in the church community, or whatever. I’m aware of the necessity of curbing the independent spirit for the sake of community. But in other ways, I’m seeing how this is a good characteristic that God has put in me for a reason. I need to listen to that tug toward independence, and make myself as free as possible from participating in corrupt systems. For a long time I thought that maybe I could be that advocate to stand in the gap and navigate the corruption and senselessness of the legal system for the typically underrepresented. As much as I believe that that should be done, I’m now learning that instead of playing by the system's rules for the sake of the Gospel, I personally am called to, as much as possible, live by a new system according to the Gospel for the sake of the system. Similar ends, but very different means - a path, I think, that fits me much better.

Not that I’ll never work for another organization, or fight corruption directly, or live in community, etc. But rather, I want to form community, work with organizations, and live a life that models the Gospel’s alternative reality and avoids as much as possible engaging in the world’s broken systems. There are signs that this is possible, though my own version is yet mostly unformed. Here are some clues and outlines: Catholic Worker houses, Jacob’s Well, local food and goods, home gardens, veggie oil engine conversion, solar power, clandestine urban chickens and bees, forming relationships across socio-economic divides, front porch folk music. I’m just reaching for little pieces of this alternative vision. I know that´s vague, but I have a feeling many of you get what I´m saying. I look forward to working for this kind of life with all of you.