Joy Farrington comments on injustice

Joy Attmore

The auditorium was alive with energy: families and friends all eagerly watching the stage to see their loved ones performing pieces centered around the theme of 'emotions'. Dancers, actors, poets, singers and songwriters all flooded the stage to a backdrop of music, lights and video presentations. I found myself choking on sobs as the first piece played out before me; the theme of it being 'justice'.

I'm a sucker for anything justice themed. It's one of those words or themes that always grabs my attention when it appears and causes a 'yes!' cry to rise up out of me. This passion and desire for justice only continues to grow within me as I work with people and journey on in life. The more injustices you see or experience, the more seeking justice becomes non-negotiable.

The dancers on stage were giving their all over to the choreography whilst behind them a screen displayed images of injustices taking place all over the world. The pictures were captivating and heart-breaking all at once, almost making me want to avert my eyes from the screen. Other faces began flashing into my mind, faces that I knew intimately and people whose names I knew well, individuals who all need a touch of justice; a breakthrough in their circumstances; freedom from their pain. It was seeing these faces that triggered a near outbreak of tears down my face as I sat a few rows away from the stage.

I think for all of us, no matter what our belief system, when we are faced with a circumstance beyond our control, or are battling with outcomes that we did not ask for or want, we have a tendency to look to the heavens and either ask, 'why?' or cry, 'help!'

Injustice can be overwhelming and often hits us from the side, knocking the wind out of us and momentarily causing us to fall to our knees. I hate it, with every fibre of my being, and every time I have to encounter it again my heart breaks.

Sitting in this theatre watching young people passionately perform pieces addressing injustice after injustice and crying out for justice, I began to be desperate for someone to start giving a solution, to begin showing us where the hope was. The answer never really arrived though and a deep restlessness began to stir in me. We can't just dance about injustices, we have to dance on injustices!

When you're going through something truly earth-shatteringly awful the last thing you want to hear is, 'just be positive, keep your head up and keep going'. They are nice enough words but that's all that they really are, empty words that don't hold a solution or really help you move forward. I refuse to be someone who only has words to offer someone; I always want to be able to direct others to real hope.

In more recent weeks, I have found myself in a situation that has brought me to my knees, tears running down my face, looking in the direction of heaven and hearing my broken voice ask for a justice that this world seems incapable of giving. This hasn't meant that the next day what I have asked for arrives in a neat and perfectly wrapped parcel, in fact sometimes I wonder whether anyone has heard me at all. Seeing the restoration of every violation of love requires journeying in faith and in hope, against all odds. Sometimes this is what the pathway towards the completion of justice looks like, tear-filled eyes that are still full of hope.

But the answer to injustices - to war, violence, hatred, bullying, exploitation, prejudice, racism - isn't just simply, 'be positive, keep your head up and keep going'; no, it's much more helpful than that.

'Come to me all those you are weary and I will give you rest. I love justice and wear it as a cloak about me. I always secure justice for the poor and uphold the cause of the needy. My justice restores all things and I abound in love for you that looks upon your brokenness with compassion and with grace. I will never leave you or abandon you in the pit but I promise to pull you out of the miry clay and set you on solid and safe ground again. I will take your hand and lead you into wide, spacious places. There I will give you back what has been stolen from you and turn the places that caused you trouble and strife into a land of hope and redemption. I am always for you and not against you for my heart is full of unending love for you, the apple of my eye.'
- God, The Source of all Justice; The Bible.