There Is A Time For Everything

Wisdom Nugget :“Because to every purpose there is time and judgment, therefore the misery of man is heavy upon him."

Photo Credit: Photopin creative commons

While all of us may not have been through a Nazi Treblinka death camp like I shared yesterday, all of us have experienced injustice in life one way or another. For instance, you were wronged and lodged a report with the police, only to be invited later by the same police officer, who had taken bribe, and you ended up becoming  the accused instead of the complainant; or you may have been involved in an accident that wasn’t your fault, and yet someone testified falsely that the accident was in fact your fault, and you have to pay the damages. Or perhaps you turned in a test, and the teacher accused you of cheating because your answers were exactly the same as another student’s answers. Or perhaps you gave a large sum of money to someone to invest with the assurance of a significant return on your investment, only to discover that you have been defrauded of your life’s savings. Or perhaps your coworker made unwanted sexual advances towards you, and when you told your superiors, you—and not your coworker—got fired.

 A similar event occurred when I was about 11 or 12 years of age but I remember it like yesterday because it was an experience too painful to forget. We were on a brief holiday in an uncle's home when he sent me on an errand. On my return my uncle was inside his bedroom which I had no access to, so I gave the change to Mary give to him inside the bedroom. About an hour later my uncle was asking me for his change and I said I had given it to Mary. Well she denied completely ever collecting any change from me and because she was an in house member and I, just a visiting holiday maker, she was believed and I was called a thief. Boy, was it painful ? I cried and tried to convince my uncle but to no avail. Next day I was asked to leave the house and return to my home. Unfortunately many years after I have never met Mary again. I have since forgiven her but I vowed to remind her anytime, anywhere and any how we meet, of how she lied against me.

To those of you who have suffered grave injustice and think even God failed to defend you, remember these words "....The righteous will be judged and so will the wicked, for there is a time...!"

Judgement is sure but THERE IS A TIME  appointed for it. Don't forget that many innocent people suffered for decades in the hands of their oppressors, but judgement still came eventually. The bad news is that we cannot choose the time. The good news is judgement will eventually come. For Adolph Hitler, Muammar Gaddafi, Sadam Hussein or Idi Amin, judgement did eventually come. Since it is not for you to judge or appoint the time for the judgement, why not, for your own health's sake forgive and let go. "Remember There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness."-Josh Billings

The Reality of Injustice

Wisdom Nugget.....He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth: In his humiliation his judgment was taken away: and who shall declare his generation? for his life is taken from the earth."

Sign on Nobel Laureates Boulevard in Rishon LeZion saluting Jewish Nobel Laureates.

Here are my closing thoughts on injustice.

We all like stories with happy endings. Whether the story is in a book or movie or even in real life, we like stories with happy endings.That's one reason why I love Chinese movies. The good guy never dies and he always beats the bad guy at the end. Sometimes, however, real life stories don’t have happy endings. And although we prefer stories with happy endings to stories with sad endings, we understand that life and its stories don’t always have happy endings. And as much as we all hate to live in a world of injustice, truth is because we live in a fallen world, some stories have unjust endings. Solomon wrote :
"Again I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them! On the side of their oppressors there was power, and there was no one to comfort them. 2 And I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive. 3 But better than both is he who has not yet been and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun."

In 1947, Simon Wiesenthal formed a volunteer organization to help find and prosecute Nazi war criminals. During the next forty years, Wiesenthal’s organization helped track down more than one thousand war criminals, including Franz Stangl, the former commandant of the Treblinka death camp.
What was Wiesenthal’s motivation? He had plenty of good reasons. During World War II, he spent the last three years of the war in a series of labor and concentration camps. The Nazis killed 89 members of his and his wife’s Jewish families during the war. But when asked the reason for his work, he pointed to one concrete experience that happened in a World War II death camp. One day two Nazi officers rode to the site where the prisoners were excavating rock. One of them grabbed a Jewish man and made him stand back to back with another Jewish man. He had a guard bind the two men together with a rope. Then, just as calmly as if he were swatting a fly, he pulled out his gun and shot through the first man’s head into the head of the man behind him, killing both men with one bullet. He turned to the other officer and said to him, “See, I told we’ve been wasting 50 percent of our bullets.”
Simon Wiesenthal’s responded to this atrocious act by saying, “God was on leave.” He wondered where God was when the world was filled with injustice.

66 years later the Jews rule the world. Out of the total 684 Nobel laureates ( in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, Economics and Peace.) world over, a full 22.66% of them have been of Jewish lineage. An amazing list of achievements for a people who comprise just 0.1955% of the world population! There are 115.9 times as many Jewish Nobel laureates as there would be if every race had equal representation among the Nobel Prize winners). Many of their contributions to science and society are practical and beneficial to our everyday lives (e.g. anesthesia, penicillin, blood groups, relativity which enables GPS).

How did they do it ? Many reasons, but one of them being that
after thousands of years of persecution, climaxing at in the Holocaust murder of 6 million of them They were resurrected and restored to greatness because " Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit".


Photo credit: en.wikipedia.org

The Curse of Injustice 4

Wisdom Nugget: "Don’t steal from the poor, because they are poor; and don’t use your position to crush the weak  The Lord will take up their case and press the life out of those who oppress them."

Oppression

Have you ever wondered lately why more rich people are getting struck with cancer, tumors and very deadly heart diseases ?

I still remember like yesterday, my days in Law School. One of our lecturers walked very slowly into class, apparently not feeling well. We - the students - empathized with him and expressed our sincere wishes for his speedy recovery. Then one of the students dared to ask him the nature of his ailment, whereupon he said something that we all laughed about then, but now I know not to be a joke, He said to us "Oh don't worry, you all can't relate with it. It's rich people's sickness!"

Many years after, I realized that indeed one of the greatest tragedies of life is how the rich steal from the poor, and use their position to oppress the weak. And how as a result, their Maker "...takes up their case and  presses the life out of those who oppress them."  You will recall I had said before that because of the complexities of human existence, at one time or another we will all be vulnerable, defenseless and very susceptible. There are laws which make it obligatory for the strong to protect the weak; the informed to protect the ignorant; and the powerful to protect the defenseless. To violate these aforementioned laws is to attract a curse. Take away those laws and society will be brutish, savage and barbaric. To undermine those laws is to take us right back into the jungles of the Stone Ages where only the fittest survived.

In 2010 was born the Arab Spring: the wave of revolutionary demonstrations, protests, and civil wars occurring in the Arab world. This revolution which began on 18 December, 2010 fought against oppressive dictators who had stolen from the poor and used their position to crush the rich

Till date, these official thieves (Presidents) are being crushed and disgraced out of power. We have witnessed the fall of the Presidents of Tunisia,[1] Egypt,[2] Libya,[3] and Yemen;[4] civil uprisings have erupted in Bahrain[5] and Syria;[6] major protests have broken out in Algeria,[7] Iraq,[8] Jordan,[9] Kuwait,[10] Morocco,[11] and Sudan;[12] and minor protests have occurred in Lebanon,[13] Mauritania,[14] Oman,[15] Saudi Arabia,[16] Djibouti,[17)and  (18) Western Sahara.

To you who are being oppressed, your case will be taken up. Your oppressors will have the life pressed out of them. But to the rest, let me remind you of the words of Carl T. Rowan, "It is often easier to become outraged by injustice half a world away than by oppression and discrimination half a block from home."

And Jonathan Sacks wrote "If you want a free society, teach your children what oppression tastes like. Tell them how many miracles it takes to get from here to there. Above all, encourage them to ask questions. Teach them to think for themselves."

Solomon summarizes it in these words: "Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness. I said in my heart, All will be judged: both the righteous and the wicked. For there is a time for every matter and for every work."

Desist from stealing from the poor. Stop using your position to crush the weak. If you don't turn a new leaf, ...it's only a matter of time.

Photo credit: whatsaiththescripture.com

Injustice and Curses

Wisdom Nugget: He has told you, O man, what is good; and what is required of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your Maker?             

Scale of Justice

All through the book you will notice that "The fatherless and widows" come under the same omnibus and are always grouped together. Literally, "the fatherless" means those without fathers and "the widows", those without husbands. But the spirit of the text goes beyond that simplistic application. They both represent people who are defenseless,. helpless, vulnerable and with no one to fight for them.

In most cultures in my country, when a father dies and his children are not of age, relatives take away all of the father's assets from you, everything. As for the widow, she is only a piece of property bought by the husband while he was alive. At his death, all her husband's properties are seized, she is subjected to demonic rituals like drinking the water derived from the washing of the corpse, shaved and must not leave the solitude, confinement and darkness of the room she shared with the husband for several months. When she finishes with the mourning rites, the house would have been swept, her; children, reduced to housemaids and everything her husband labored for would have disappeared. Often, young widows are forcibly remarried to one of the deceased's kinsmen; or contend with being raped as a matter of right. And sometimes, she may have to sleep with those who are to pay her late husband's gratuities.

Once there was a young girl who went to her late father's colleagues for assistance for her school fees. This man whom she called uncle, gave her a condition: she was requird to sleep with him before he would offer her any assistance. What these  traditionalists don't know is that these cultures bring great curses upon our communities . When the bitter tears of these fatherless girls and poor widows flow down their cheeks and fall to the ground, a lamentation against the land is raised. And a curse is invoked upon the people.

As Job put it : "But maybe you sent widows away without giving them anything.And maybe you took advantage of orphans. That is why traps are all around you,and sudden trouble makes you afraid. That is why it is so dark you cannot see,and why a flood of water covers you."

Have you ever wondered why many of our communities are so blessed in natural resources but the people are still poor ? Foreigners come in and prosper but the owners of the land are blind and in darkness and can't see the opportunities and for centuries the flood of poverty covers the indigenous people. Violence against women, rapes, mutilation of the female genitals are only a few of the evils that are responsible for the downward spirals of our economy and the violence and fears that we live with daily.

"...maker of the fatherless, and judge of the widows...will bless a people who respect the right of orphans and widows and vice versa."

 “If you listen to what I say, you will get the good things from this land. But if you refuse to listen and rebel against me, your enemies will destroy you.'... She was a faithful city. What made her become like a prostitute? In the past, the city... was filled with justice, and goodness... Instead, there are murderers. Once you were like pure silver, but now you are like the impurities that people throw away when the silver is purified. You are like good wine that has been weakened with water. Your rulers are rebels and friends of thieves. They demand bribes and accept money for doing wrong. They take money to cheat people, and they don’t speak up for widows and orphans. They will not even listen to their cries for help."

Another sage says, “You must never do anything bad to women whose husbands are dead or to orphans. If you do anything wrong to these widows or orphans, Their Maker will know it; will hear about their suffering; and will be very angry...

Conclude with Imelda Marcos words: "Continuous persecution of widows and orphans is a crime. Even the Bible says there is a specific place in hell for those who oppress widows."

Picture credit: fabiusmaximus.com

The Curse Of Injustice

Wisdom Nuggets: The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly.

                                                                                                          -  Richard Bach

confident injustice

In the next couple of days I shall be drawing your attention to an explosive truth which many in this generation either do not know or ignore. It is called The Curse of Injustice. Many are aware of The Power of Blessings. That is why in the US you hear people say "God Bless America". But what is equally potent is the power of a curse provoked by injustice.

Understanding the complexities of human existence in all ramifications; acknowledging the inevitability of our defenselessness and vulnerablilities can help us understand the inherent dangers of injustice. There exist designed laws which make it obligatory for the strong to protect the weak, the informed to protect the ignorant and the powerful to protect the defenseless. To violate that law is to attract a curse (Cursed be anyone who perverts the justice due to the foreigner...)

In 2009,  I sat next to a young man from Miami Florida to Haiti, on board an American Airways flight, and we naturally became friendly. It was my first trip to Haiti and it was soon after the earthquake. I was on a fact finding mission to see how my country could assist Haiti. So I was quick to befriend the young man so I could find my bearing when I arrived Port au Prince. On arrival, we drove around. I was shocked at the sorry state of Port au Prince, many months after the earthquake. Corpses were still trapped under the rubbles, collapsed buildIngs still leaned against one another, people still lived under the UN refugee tents and hunger was endemic. My Haitian friend had told me even the eggs sold in Haiti were from the nearby Dominican Republic. Turning to him, i told him i needed to change some dollars so I could take care of my hotel bills and other miscellaneous expenses. So he drove me to a dirty street, asked me to wait in the car, called a friend with whom he disappeared for a while. When he returned, he told me that the exchange rate was 1$ =30 Haitian Gourde. I was so shocked because I realized how poor the country was and I couldn't reconcile it with the high value on their currency. But I felt I was in the protective custody of my new found host and thus, couldn't dare question his facts (and figures). After all, his wife had joined us. They both communicated in Creole and I couldn't understand a word of what was said. I exchanged about $700 (because he had insisted I must take him and his wife to the most expensive restaurant in Port au Prince). Then I got to my hotel and asked the receptionist who told me the rate was $1= 35,000 Haitian Gourde. Next day my friend insisted that I paid him $500 dollars for taking me around in his car for half a day. As I boarded my flight to leave Haiti the next day I said to myself, "Now I understand why they are so poor !"

We're all defenseless foreIgners. The new staff in your office, the new girl or family in your neighborhood, the new student in your class, the new member in your church/club, the new entrant into your line of business, and the new wife your brother just married into your family, without exception, are all vulnerable and defenseless foreigners whom the fates have brought across your path. Before you take advantage of them remember the words of Plato, "He who commits injustice is ever made more wretched than he who suffers it."

 Don't  ever forget, the wheel of injustice always spins around. Today it is someone else, tomorrow it may be you. Whatever a man sows, that he will reap.

Photo Credit: johncalvinmusic.bandcamp.com

Love Is Never Happy With Injustice

Fighting Injustice

Wisdom Nugget :  “You must be fair in judgment. You must not show special favor to the poor. And you must not show special favor to important people. You must be fair when you judge your neighbor. You must not go around spreading false stories against other people. Don’t do anything that would put your neighbor’s life in danger... “You must be fair when you judge people, and you must be fair when you measure and weigh things. Your baskets should be the right size. Your jars should hold the right amount of liquids. Your weights and balances should weigh things correctly..."

Today, permit me to demystify and simplify injustice.

When Mrs Potiphar falsely accused Joseph of attempted tape and without trial, he was thrown into prison, that was an injustice.

When Samuel’s sons Joel and Abijah, refused to follow their father's footsteps but  accepted bribes and took money secretly and changed their decisions in court and cheated people in court, that was injustice.

When Jezebel got some area boys to testify against Naboth in court and thereupon had him executed so her husband could acquire Naboth's family land, that was injustice.

"... we pushed Justice away.Fairness stands off in the distance.Truth has fallen in the streets.Goodness is not allowed in the city..." This is another face of injustice.

When against all known rules of natural justice, equity and good conscience, innocent people are convicted, that is injustice.

Unfortunately injustice is real and happens everyday. As St. Augustine advised, "If you are suffering from a bad man's injustice, forgive him lest there be two bad men." Only love can transform calculated  injustice into creative justice. Love makes justice just. Justice without love is always injustice.

 We may seem now to be surrounded by chaos -- war, disease, injustice, oppression, death. But we can rise above these societal ills. Things are not what they seem to be. It is only a matter of time until it becomes clear to all that we are more than conquerors.

Hate injustice but be careful never to hate the perpetuators of injustice.

 Let's end with this quote by, Moore, Olive: "Hatred is a passion requiring one hundred times the energy of love. Keep it for a cause, not an individual. Keep it for intolerance, injustice, stupidity. For hatred is the strength of the sensitive. Its power and its greatness depend on the selflessness of its use."

Photo credit: thecrazylady.wordpress.com

Love Detests Injustice

Wisdom Nuggets: Love is never happy with injustice,...it is happy with the truth.


Dr. Martin Luther King's Words on Injustice

The two pillars of any genuine civilization, the two pillars of the happiest and most prosperous nations on earth, the two pillars of any great lasting and exciting relationship or marriage and the two pillars of any great organization and government are  RIGHTEOUSNESS & JUSTICE.

While righteousness means "doing what is right at all times", Justice implies "rewarding good and punishing evil". Anything short of these and society would be  brutish, cruel, animalistic and poverty-stricken. On these two pillars, you can draw the line between the world's wealthiest nations and poorest nations.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca said " A kingdom founded on injustice never lasts." I still remember the day I vowed that I was going to become a lawyer. Someone had just been falsely accused and she was crying because she'd been innocent. Nobody believed her, but me. I concluded that the world was filled with this kind of injustice and that somebody needed to fight for the innocent. Injustice is rigging an election and stealing the people's mandate; injustice is denying a widow and her little children of their late husband's and father's property; injustice is promising to marry a lady only to abandon her later for her best friend. Now, you aren't just expected to desist from unjust acts, "Don't even rejoice with those who did it".

Martin Luther King, Jr.said: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
Desmond Tutu wrote "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality".

Elie Wiesel postulated "There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest." I am convinced that "A just war is in the long run far better for a nation's soul than the most prosperous peace obtained by acquiescence in wrong or injustice."Henry David Thoreau said "If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law." That was what the Egyptian midwives Shiphrah and Puah did when asked to kill innocent kids and they were blessed for disobeying the government.

Where is the justice today? I fear for how insensitive, uncaring and lethargic we have become in the face of injustice. These days people loot valuables from their work places and pay heavy tithes, It's sad that we have stopped our ears from hearing the cry of the oppressed, the poor and the widows so that we even stoop so low as to celebrate the perpetuators of these injustices.

In Germany during World War II there was a Protestant church which stood near some railroad tracks. These tracks often carried Jewish families on their way to Nazi concentration camps for extermination. The cries for help and justice were sometimes so loud and disturbing especially as the congregation worshipped. The solution was a call for the congregation to sing louder so the cries wouldn’t be heard.

How many times have we tuned up our worship music, or stuck our noses deeper in the hymnal so we can pretend not to be aware of the injustices that abound around us?

Henry David Thoreau wrote "Justice is sweet and musical; but injustice is harsh and discordant". Truth is, evil thrives because good men do nothing.