President George W Bush Meets with Saudi King Abdullah
Girls left to beg on the sidewalk. Some children are kidnapped then set out on the street to beg.
The spiritual trap was that we always remain in charge; we decide who is worthy and unworthy of our love, and we garner significant self-esteem as a byproduct. The critical question then becomes: Is it really virtue at all or actually an avoidance of the Divine Caritas? (Loving Community) Is this any type of surrender or just another type of control? Are we instruments of God's love flowing into this world or are we perhaps inhibiting that flow by our lack of solidarity. We might wait for the onrush of warm feelings or sad feelings, but the Lord and the Good News are not well served. In other words, no new creation unfolds, no new people are formed, no healing grace is poured out. It is just the same old system continued. Too often we have tried to be charitable without being just. We have tried to give without letting go. We have wanted to consider ourselves Christians while being only enlightened pagans. Charity can never be used as a tool to control others.
I think for too long the most basic question of social justice has been unasked and not demanded especially by the church, because when we ask it we are considered troublesome or dangerous. Even a bishop of the church like Dom Helder Camara of Brazil is forced to say, "As long as we feed the poor, they call us saints, but when we ask why there are poor, they call us communists." The question of justice will always be subversive and counter cultural to those who are enjoying the fruits of the system as it is. So the teachings of Jesus have put us on a collision course with the world that needs to divide us into those with power and those without power -- those well dressed in purple and linen, and those covered with sores.
