"do justice, love mercy, walk humbly." -micah 6:8

i am glad this verse does not tell us to love justice, but the fact that many christians are interpreting it as such is a sad one. it is this love of justice that turns us in to blood-thirsty avengers, putting arrogant bumper stickers on our cars and paying to "shoot bin-laden" with a paintball gun at the boardwalk. it is this love of justice that rejoices in the sight of the bloody heads of the enemies on the front page of our newspapers. and oh how we would have loved to see saul's head on the front page before he wandered on to the road to damascus, and we would have excitedly told our friends and celebrated, not knowing the paul we would have been losing. the love of justice degrades the value of human life, it denies the hope we have experienced in our own lives, it forgets the road to damascus. the love of justice is the opposite of walking humbly, for we are forgetting the justice that has been foregone in our own lives, the justice where, if we all received what we truly deserved there would be little good, hope, joy, life, love, and so on. justice always is, or should be, a somber event.