Uniform Injustice

I was mad.

My Spanish teacher made me read a short story and the ending peeved me off. It was the account of a little boy, Willy, and his mother. She sold drinks under a make-shift blue tarp on the side of a street and cleaned a couple of houses in order to provide for them both. They were poor and typical. One day, the principal at Willy´s school announced that they would be entering into a parade. Wanting to display their finest, each student was required to participate in a new black pants, white top, and jacket. A new suit and tie were an out of reach luxury for Willy and his single mom. Upon discussion, the director conceded that Willy could be involved as long as he had a new white dress shirt. A mother, eager to please her dear son, sold her most precious possesion, pearl earrings, so that her beloved could join his classmates. The day of the parade arrived and both were excited and emotional. Just before the students marched into the streets, the director decided that the jacket-less Willy made the school look bad and determined that only the fully suited would participate. A dejected Willy stood, stifling his tears and sucking in his bottom lip, watching as his peers pranced to the beat of drums and tossed their batons into the air.

I turned the last page and saw that it was blank. I turned another and it too was void of words. I went back to make sure that two pages weren´t sticking together...nothing. I was left with this image of a hurting and rejected child who had done nothing to merit this type of treatment.

I was mad.

After summarizing the story and my reaction to my teacher Susí, she asked me if I would have changed the ending if I were the author. After a contemplative pause, I concluded that I would keep the ending as it was. The author wanted to make a point, and he did so with punch and precision. I can still feel the impact of his literal fist in my gut.

Injustice exists. Little boys can´t participate in parades due to poverty. Directors favour appearance and presentation over compassion and empathy. Little children prostitute themselves while adults reap the financial gains of this perversion. Men abandon the women they impregnate, leaving them to sell meagre drinks on the sides of streets. The onus is on us to change their plot. We must fight for their happy endings. We must struggle to fill in the blank pages with words of hope and a better day.

The ugly head of injustice is turned by the neck of negligence and ignorance, mostly of the down and out. In our arrogance, we neglect "living praise". "Living praise is to embody the things that God is concerned with, ...our living must bring rescue from the trampling boot. Justice will be our concern because it is God´s concern....It is picking up those who are marginalized and whose voices are unheard and saying, "Look! Look!" (David Crowder, Praise Habit). An even better book says this, "Woe to you Pharisees because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue, and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone." Luke 11:42

The most stirring scenes for me in the movie Narnia are the moments when Aslan roars. A shiver races through me and my armhairs stand at attention during these gutteral utterances. It is the sound of justice about to be delivered, the sound of an end about to be written. We are of those who have the "happily ever after", but only the Lion can scribe "the end"...the end of injustice. When He roars, when the last page is turned, may my pen be a sword that battles on behalf of the marginilized.