Do you know why this world is as bad as it is?
It is because people think only about their own business, 
and won’t trouble themselves to stand up for the oppressed, 
nor bring the wrong-doers to light. 
My doctrine is this: 
that if we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, 
and do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt.
~Anna Sewell from Black Beauty

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question
the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies.
On the one hand, we are called to play the good Samaritan
on life’s roadside; but that will be only an initial act.
One day the whole Jericho road must be transformed
so that men and women will not be beaten and robbed
as they make their journey through life.
True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar;
it understands that an edifice that produces beggars needs restructuring.
America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world,
can well lead the way in this revolution of values.
There is nothing, except a tragic death wish,
to prevent us from reordering our priorities…
~Martin Luther King, Jr. from a speech April 4, 1967

We live in a time where the groaning need
and dividedness of humankind
is especially to be felt and recognized.
Countless people are subjected to hatred,
violence and oppression which go unchecked.
The injustice and corruption which exist today
are causing many voices to be raised to protest
and cry out that something be done.
Many men and women are being moved to sacrifice much
in the struggle for justice, freedom, and peace.
There is a movement afoot in our time,
a movement which is growing, awakening.

We must recognize that we as individuals are to blame
for every social injustice,
every oppression,
the downgrading of others
and the injury that man does to man,
whether personal or on a broader plane.…
God must intervene with his spirit and his justice and his truth.
The present misery, need, and decay must pass away
and the new day of the Son of Man must dawn.
This is the advent of God’s coming.
~Dwight Blough from the introduction to When the Time was Fulfilled (1965)

I weep to see ongoing bitter divisions among our citizens
as we fail to learn from history’s past errors.
Here we are again, groaning against one another once more,
ignited by front-running candidates for president
whose ethics and values do not represent
freedom and justice for all.

As we once again walk this hazardous Jericho Road together,
we cannot pass by those who lie dying in the ditch,
our brother, our sister, our neighbor, a stranger.

We must stop and help lest we share the guilt of their suffering.

It could be you or me there bleeding, beaten, abandoned
until Someone took our place
so we can get up and walk Home.

Maranatha.

At the edge of Jericho Road
Beneath the street light’s yellow orange glow
The feared and the fallen go
In the way of predator and prey
No one’s spared
Because hate is too great a weight to bear

In a cage of shadows we meet
Naked and bloodied in the street
At the mercy, at the feet
Of the way of predator and prey
No one’s spared
Because hate is too great a weight to bear

In the darkness on shattered pavement
The better angels fade
Blurred in slumber, murder by numbers
Do you know my name?
Do you know my name?
I believe in you

Because everyone holds some part of the truth
And now, I’m in your way
Do we stay on Jericho Road, forever going nowhere
Till hate is too great a weight to bear