Saturday, March 22, 2008

It's ugly when it happens here too

I had the opportunity to attend a lunch forum here in Ann Arbor with the theologian and ethicist Nicholas Wolterstorff earlier this month.

During lunch he shared the story of how he first became professionally interested in issues of justice. At a conference in South Africa, Wolterstorff was struck by how white Afrikaner delegates would respond with language of benevolence to black and colored appeals for justice. South African blacks and coloreds would criticize apartheid as unjust; Afrikaners would respond by attacking their "ingratitude" for how much white South Africans had done for them.

But American whites can use the exact same language: check out Pat Buchanan criticizing Barack Obama in just this way. Granted, his insistence on gratitude isn't the only offensive element of his screed - but he uses it as the moral undergirding for his other assertions.

Thank you. Professor, for the insight.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Traffic and Worship

Sometimes God speaks loudest to me in the sheer incongruities of life.

On the way into work this morning I dropped some bills off at the post office, which required a left turn from a fairly busy 4-lane street. Unfortunately, the driver three cars ahead of me - apparently deciding that he really really had to have a parking spot right at the entrance - stopped right in the middle of the parking lot entry and waited for a spot to open up.

Minutes passed. Literally.

By the time a good enough spot opened up for him, there were four of us in line to enter the post office lot by turning left, with three others coming from the opposite direction waiting to turn right.

Meanwhile, playing in my car from my iPod, I've got Chris Tomlin singing:
See the heavens open up
Hear the music coming down
Nothing's gonna separate us from the Father's love...


It was a good reminder - although love was not what I was feeling in my heart at that moment.