Justice is another one of those words–the kind that can hold almost entirely opposite meanings, and where context means everything. When the “justice system” sentences a human being to prison time and fines of money, it is imposing punishment for a crime of which they are declared guilty. When an enraged human being strikes out against someone who has done harm to them because they “deserve justice” their rage is feeding their sense of revenge. We refer to courts, lawyers, district attorneys, judges, police officers, and prisons as parts of the “justice system” as they attempt to carry out our laws and and a sense of accountability.
Justice. It can mean punishment. It can mean revenge. It can refer to a legal system. It can infer accountability to that legal system. Love is strikingly absent from all of those considerations.
The word justice comes from the Latin word for laws. It seems that the real question for Unitarian Universalists with our configuration of all our values and principles around love is this: which laws are we talking about? The laws of Georgia, the United States, the specific laws embodied in the US Constitution? While all of those are attempts at creating a better place and way to live, our Unitarian Universalist sense of justice appeals to a higher set of laws, and those laws are founded in love. From the perspective of love, we can ask how any particular system is treating everyone involved, especially the most vulnerable: who is being served, who is being forgotten, who is being oppressed? From the perspective of love, we can look at any conflict and ask who is being harmed and what is required to restore life, safety and all the things needed for life to thrive?
Justice as punishment, revenge, accountability and a set of laws and a system to enforce them appeal to the lowest sense of the word. None of them heal. Very often they do not help though they claim to make society a better place to live. Those who go into our prisons most often do not come out better but more broken, more apt to harm themselves and others. They are ill received. They are not seen as those who have paid their debt.
Justice through love is difficult and complex. It asks us to rise up from what we think we know and create restoration from the heart: in league with the most vulnerable, with those who are being harmed, with those who are forgotten, with those who started life behind and who will never be able to catch up with “bootstraps” alone. Justice through love calls for our hearts to make every decision with the most vulnerable in mind.
~Bob Patrick
Beeeeaautiful
As UUs we need to be more than just aware of what it means to understand the plight of humanity, but be involved in its care so everyone gets to live safely and justly within their culture and beliefs. Thankyou for sharing this.
Laws and Love. One objective, one subjective. Can’t have Love and empathy getting in the way of sentencing. I understand the gap between Love and Law has it’s place in our society, when applied in a certain contexts. I guess it is Justice that can close the gap, Justice takes into consideration the equity of consequences ( not the equality) and Love takes off the blindfold of Lady justice..
Are we there yet ?????
Thank you for exploring this. I’ve been wondering about using this graphic since the UUA has chosen vocabulary that isn’t commonly used among most people I know, such as “pluralism”. I’ve wondered how this logo will make sense to people who aren’t UU-aligned.
But the Love in the center I fully understand. There’s a part of Jesus’ Greatest Commandment that has always seemed like a “throwaway” line in the churches I was raise in and have attended as an adult. I’ve never heard it addressed in teachings. It is Matthew 22: 40. “And all the Laws and Prophets hang upon these two commandments.”
This, for me, is what the New Testament is about. When asked which commandment is the greatest, Jesus is asked to choose a commandment from among the Old Testament scriptures. And he chooses two, “love God with all your heart,” and “love your neighbor as yourself.” (Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19;18)
Those two commandments are really three, “Love God, love your neighbor, and love yourself.” Jesus is saying that all the laws and prophecies should be interpreted through love for how they impact our relationships with our beliefs, with others, and with ourselves. The first time I read the UU principles we’ve striven to abide by for so many years, I thought that finally a church understood what Jesus was trying to say, love is at the center. I’m glad the clergy and members who have studied and developed this logo are illustrating our perspective.
Thank you, Bob, for your words as always. I must admit I am still warming up to the graphic – in part it is because I feel that literally everything today is put into easy-to-digest format, thanks to social media and TikTok. While I know our UU principles were due for re-write, and that this graphic has an accompanying narrative, I hope that UUs will look at the narrative, as well.
For example, for Justice, this is the new narrative:
Justice. We work to be a diverse multicultural Beloved Communities where all
thrive. We covenant to dismantle racism and all forms of systemic oppression. We
support the use of inclusive democratic processes to make decisions.
With the new graphic, I miss Principle 5 and the specific call for the use of the democratic process in society at large. With recent attacks on our democracy (Jan 6), and the important link between social justice and democracy, I hope UUs read the small print behind the graphic.
Wow! As I read this word justice in the new graphic, I only thought of justice as “being treated fairly”. I never thought about the revenge definition of it. I suppose that was because “love” is at the center of it all.