In Reply to: Family Care Foundation Benefits from PR While Exers Ignored (Repost) posted by Candy on February 09, 2004 at 07:47:40:
I reposted this from the Academic board because it raises issues of social justice and faith. I see a concern with social justice as a matter of faith--a spiritual journey--because it is in the community of ordinary people, in their daily suffering and joy, that I meet my higher power face-to-face in human form.
I have what is called an "incarnate" spirituality and I practice what is known in some Christian groups as "the social gospel." I'm not so interested in the world to come as the one I live in here and now. While I hope there is a higher power waiting for me in the next world, I can't speculate too much about that if I have no clue or sense to the whereabouts of my higher power in this present world.
It is a strange thing for me, but it is recognizing and responding to human injustice that I get these intense moments when I think there cannot possibly be a God and that whatever god I thought I knew just plain doesn't exist and isn't there for me or anyone else.
If I stay with the pain of that emptiness and abandonment, that is when I have experienced "something other" that gives me hope in the place of despair. For me, this is what Jesus was talking about when he said, "The Kingdom of God is within you."
There may or may not be restitution in this life for the injustices perpetrated by Family leadership. However, I believe there can be peace of mind.
I am a friend of Bill W., and he taught me this saying: Easy does it, one day at a time. I don't know what the future holds, but if I trust the process and put my energy into planning plans instead of trying to control outcomes, I can maintain my peace of mind one day at a time.