Someone else said it (and they might have said it better than I did) that justice is love on a grand scale, that justice is public love!
“Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public.”
Cornel West
I don’t know much about Cornel West, except he seems like a doozy of a person–you might love him or hate him for his politics and hard truths. But this statement–justice is what love looks like in public–resonated with me.
For years I’ve tried to put words to the tie between justice and love, and had finally settled on “love big/love small” (which you can see here).
On a macro level love looks like creating justice systems. On a micro level, it means going deeper, even if the ways you are showing love are small (like acts of kindness or taking the time to see and pursue those already around us).
One of my favorite ancient passages is “Let us stop just saying we love each other; let us really show it by our actions.” (1 John 3:18). Many of us love the idea of kindness, justice, compassion, etc. . . but rarely live it out. Even fewer of us have considered what this looks like in public on a large-scale.
This is how I want to be different, and how I assume you do too if you’ve followed me for five minutes or five years. We don’t just want to talk about love. We want to be it, live it, do it.
Today, sure, rest, refill, love those in your home. Love small and deep.
But tomorrow, don’t forget that love is big too. So bring love to the stage and live it in public with justice.
How can you live love in public?
