Riding for Justice

Today’s journey wasn’t remarkable in terms of touring the countryside. With only one minor variation, it was the new Harrah Loop counterclockwise. The single variation was, after passing the SDA Academy and retirement village on NE 63rd, I turned north on Peebly. I wanted to see how the work on Wilshire’s washout was progressing between Peebly and Triple X Roads.

Apparently some washouts require far more substantial work. I suppose this area was already planned for some kind of work, but the spring flooding forced their hand. Wilshire Boulevard runs at an odd angle to the natural creek bed. On top of that, the drainage ditch on both sides at this spot have become the capture for quite a substantial runoff from farther uphill behind me. Thus, it required some fancy hydrology to keep all this working while preventing future washouts. This is no tin-horn crossing, but a concrete culvert, a splash wall and tributary routing. In the process, the responsible government agency simply did a complete re-landscaping job and put down all new asphalt for a couple hundred yards.

While I can assure you I’ve lived in places that would have seen a far better job done, in the broader context of things I feel certain this wasn’t bad at all. It comes closer to being consciously consistent with natural forces than previous generations would have done. Any particular brand of philosophical orthodoxy becomes pointless in the real world.

That was the reason for the approach I took in my open letter post yesterday. I noted that Yes Communities management used contract law to absolve themselves of any moral responsibility for the abuse. It’s a typical Western legalist approach to anything — blame the impersonal forces of law and legal precedent, but actual moral justice be damned. I didn’t appeal to their moral sense because I knew that was pointless. Rather, I simply offered a warning that nobody liked them and they should expect resident behavior to reflect that.

This was the primary focus of my meditations as I rode. The entire legacy of Western social mythology and false moral perception is rightly deserving of the coming days of God’s wrath. The pretense that something out there in human imagination can be objective, commonly accepted and legally binding pokes God in the eye. God says all human law must conform to His revealed character, in part because Creation itself is woven from the fabric of His moral character. Everything is personal in Creation. When you do things God’s way, nature works with you, even if you hardly comprehend what it’s doing.

A critical element in His moral law is accountability. Not so much to each other, but for each other. That is, we are accountable to God’s justice in how we treat others. In broad terms, those who have much are accountable to His justice for all of it. Neither the Western hyper-libertarian nor the damned communist approach, nor anything in between, has the proper grounding to comprehend this. When you own a lot of property, you have a lot of power, and you must seek a clear conscience before God in how you handle the property in reference to other humans.

You can’t possibly account for every human variation, particularly when it comes to the human creativity at being stupid. Thinking along the lines of tort liability is wholly contrary to divine justice. Rather, you must stand before God and seek a clear conscience. That doesn’t mean you can use the excuse that your heart is silenced and you don’t give a rat’s butt about anyone. You are accountable for activating a heart-led existence, always seeking a better communion with Creation and the Creator, and always looking for ways to glorify Him by kindness and risk acceptance.

So the folks at Yes Communities are damned in that sense. But because it rests on a long American tradition of flipping the bird at God, nobody is surprised. Instead of seeking to know His demands, they make demands on Him. If you aren’t willing to take a financial loss for the sake of divine justice, then everything you touch is accursed. That’s not my decision; I’m not a holy gunslinger firing curses at Yes management. I’m simply announcing the obvious. They are responsible for cultivating the demonic presence in their dealings. If I’m wrong, at least I didn’t fail to obey the command to speak His truth as best I understand it. I am accountable to Him for my own conduct.

I can’t decide for you what you must do to keep a clear conscience before God, but if you own property, I can assure you that the Law Covenants present a pretty strong example from which God demands that we extrapolate into our own context. It’s not that hard to understand, and if I cry out to God when my sense of justice points out abuse, you can be sure He takes note. That deadened hearts cannot sense the immediacy of His wrath does not mean there is no wrath.

Even when I’m just pedaling across the countryside, I am accountable to God for His brand of justice.