My daughter has two cousins, Pete and Lily.
The three of them are all about the same age.
They have all grown up together and their love for one another is profound, as if they were
brothers and sisters.
When they were young, 4-5 years old, as they played together, they would pair up.
Two together, and one on the outside.
Inevitably this would lead to fussing. One or another of them would come running to me, loudly protesting that the others had done this or that. What we, the parents realized, early on, was that we could give them a choice.
Would you like to go back and work this out amongst yourselves?
or, would you like me to work it out for you?
Of course, the background implication being, you will probably not like my resolution.
Justice. The definition of Justice falls along two lines.
- The administration of the law
- The quality of being fair and reasonable,
To do what is good and right.
Frontier Justice, Justice of the Peace, a gross miscarriage of Justice, Injustice, Social Injustice, to do oneself justice, Bring someone to justice and Lady Justice.
Lady Justice, the personification of the just administration of the law. Blindfolded, in flowing robes. In one hand, the scales of Justice and in the other, a sword.
The scales, held in her hand, can be traced back to ancient Egypt, the daughter of Ra, the Goddess Ma’at stood for Truth, Justice and Reality. She carried the white Feather of Truth on her head.
The God of the Underworld, Anubis would weigh your deceased soul against the Feather of Truth. If your heart, which they considered part of your soul, was lighter than the Feather, you were admitted to the Field of Reeds, if not, your heart was thrown on to the floor of the Hall of Osiris and devoured by Amemait, the devourer of the dead, a creature with the head of a crocodile, the front of a leopard and the back of a rhinoceros.
At that point your soul would cease to exist.
Lady Justice, in her other hand, the Sword, a historic symbol of authority. The power of a Monarch could be delivered with the stroke of a sword. Suggesting that Justice can be swift and final.
And lastly, the blindfold, symbolizing Justice rendered without passion or prejudice. Impartiality. Though some report, close inspection of the blindfold will show it slightly raised at one eye.
Suggesting, the possibility of less than impartiality.
To do what is good and right seems a simple concept. Many thinkers, philosophers and advocates of the divine, including Plato, have expounded at length on the subject.
To do what is good and right.
The complexity of the concept lies in these questions
Am I doing what is good and right for me?
Am I doing what is good and right for you?
Am I doing what is good and right for us?
We live in an age when many cry out against Social Injustice. If we turn that around and instead,
demand Social Justice. What would that look like? What kind of measurable action could be taken to forward that agenda? Perhaps Social Justice begins with me, the individual.
The thousands of choices I make each day,
I could ask,
Am I doing what is good and right for me?
Or, for those in my community?
Malcolm X stated,
“Don’t condemn if you see a person with a dirty glass of water. Just show them the clean glass that you have. When they inspect it, you won’t have to say yours is better”
Perhaps, the Justice we have been demanding from others and from our government, can only truly, be effected by each of us, individually showing our clean glass.
Doing what is good and right. To notice there is always a choice, what is good and right, for me, for you, for others.
What would our lives looks like, what would our world look like, if we sourced ourselves, our choices in a commitment to doing what is good and right.
In the end, to have a heart lighter than a feather, may, for some, be a worthy goal