Going Live

Going live with a new blog is certainly daunting.  While there is energy and excitement that I feel about this new beginning, there is also the wonderment of several things.  What will I write, who will read the words, and how will they respond are at least three of the things that stir within.

Several years ago while I was on faculty at ACU, I started a blog on this same platform.  That blog is still on the web.  It did not seem right to delete it as there were too many people, places, experiences, and ideas that shaped letjusticeroll.blogspot.com. Back then there was more time to contemplate important matters. The Social Justice Teams with their own unique space within the blog are still there, including their photos.  They made important contributions to the cause of justice and to my life.

A word or two about the title.  Let Justice Roll Down was not available, and that would have been a direct quote from the prophet Amos.  After searching around a bit, the phrase "let justice ring" was found out there.  It still sounded prophet, and useful, but not copyrighted. 

Now that I am in a different time and place without the inherent obligations of a bureaucratic structure, there seems to be an opening of spaces and places and ideas and words and stories. That means time for reading, research, ideas, and contemplation about things that matter. Words and ideas do matter, as does action. So, I will pick up with things that matter deeply to me, and hopefully to some of you.  Those things will broadly fit under the notion of "social justice." They will relate to marginalized people in a number of settings.  They will deal with injustice at individual, community, institutional, and societal levels.

Many of the contents of these pages will be about my journey as a white male through the maze of injustices to people who do not look, think, or act like me.  My journey is my journey and I do not expect anyone's to be the same, though I do suspect that perhaps we can land on some similarities and certainly many differences on occasion.

People frequently find it rather curious that a white guy from East Texas would be an advocate for Black farmers. I, too, am curious about that at times.  Somewhere within these pages, I will share that story though it is out there in other venues. There will be stories about places Charla and I have been, the people we have met, and how are lives have been altered.

When I pass over to meet God face to face, my only wish is to have left this world a bit more just and righteous than I found it in 1949.