מִשְׁפָט

mishpat (justice)

Mishpat is making sure all members of the eco-system have access to resources and goods for the sake of a viable life of dignity.  Mishpat is love with legs on.  Mishpat is love in the public square--particularly in solidarity with those who have their backs up against the wall.  Justice is darning and stitching together community from the ground up as a form of spiritual practice.  This practice begins with the local eco-systems--knowing we are one with that eco-system.  In the covenant tradition, Hebrew Scripture centers four groups for knowing the health of any system or structure.  These groups--animals/creation, the widow, the orphan, and the immigrant--often experience vulnerability with having their access to resources and goods compromised.  Or being "thinged" by systems and structures of political power, economic profit, and national policy.  

In a culture still largely governed by the whims and wishes of adult, Hebrew males, these groups have historically needed solidarity and advocacy to make their way.  Animals/creation, widows, orphans, and immigrants had no standing of their own in the senate, the town square, the market or bank--places of power, wealth, and insider wisdom.  Too often, these groups are literally "the canaries in the coal mine."  To do justice then, is to know life from their perspective and begin the hard work of centering and solidarity in piecing together community.  

For those privileged, justice requires humility, often silence, and sometimes yielding, in hopes for transformation.  Right relationship is established when trees, the poor, and the refugee are known as teachers.  Outside or underneath the halls of dominating and violent power, God is found present and at work regularly, consistently, persistently, and incarnationally.  

Justice work begins with a bubbling up, a resurgent rise, energy from below or acrossed the table.  God's wisdom is made manifest in those places.