Modern Slavery

Where are the Heroes of Today?

Blog_NoGreaterLoveI’m struck silent as I consider statistics on child poverty, abuse, and injustice. 143 million orphans. 1 billion children worldwide living in poverty. Over 3 million children abused each year. 150 million children engaged in child labor. 400,000 children trafficked across the borders each year. Reading these facts, I lament: these children need a hero. Actually, they need heroes to rise up and become a voice in our world of injustice.

In light of the grave suffering our world’s children endure, it’s a farce that our culture would attempt to re-define heroism according to a person’s investment in their own sensual fulfillment. Really? Would we call a hero one who would spend millions in pursuit of self-gratification? Is courage now dependent on one’s commitment to self-indulgent personal happiness? Is bravery now equated to one’s ability to acquire millions for squandering on selfish fantasies?

There was a time when a hero was one who sacrificed all for the good of others. Courage came in the form of laying down one’s life for a friend. Bravery meant facing death that others could live.

Our flimsy re-definition of heroism is but a symptom of deep-rooted issues. We’ve suppressed the truth of who we are and whose we are. We’ve forgotten why we’re here. If each would live according to our greater purpose and higher calling, how much of today’s suffering would dissipate? And how quickly.

Instead, we live ignorant and bored, ever in search of the latest diversion, however costly. And we read the headlines, shake our heads at the devastation and praise the man-made-woman all the while pointing our fingers at God in blame for the suffering.

If there is evil, it’s not because God is silent and inactive. It’s because we are. And we’ve traded the greater good for the empty cistern of selfish gain.

True Freedom

Blog_Chains

Freedom is not freedom if it comes at the expense of another’s liberty. #endmodernslavery

Source: Freedom Mourning

Photo Credit: File:Chain expressing freedom.JPG – Wikimedia Commons

Freedom Mourning

AJ_FlagsMy heart is broken this Fourth of July. Across the country, multitudes celebrate freedom while others remain bound by the chains of modern-day slavery. In a nation that espouses the ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, this should not be. How can we claim to be a free country when thousands are trafficked on our very soil? How can we set ourselves as the model of freedom when our nation is among the top perpetrators of global human trafficking?

Our soldiers boldly sacrifice to defend our freedom, traveling thousands of miles to foreign lands to ensure our safety and security. Where are those who will rise up on behalf of the oppressed within our own country? Where are the warriors who will fight to free those captive to the injustices of human trafficking?

The war that must be waged on behalf of those enslaved cannot be won with weapons and bloodshed. It deals with minds that need to be transformed, hearts that need to be reformed. Until we change our attitudes of ignorance, apathy and indulgence the tangled web of modern trafficking will ensnare our nation, choking our life and stealing our future.

Freedom is not freedom if it comes at the expense of another’s liberty. As long as humans are bought and sold as commodities in a marketplace, we cannot continue to claim we are free. If the exercise of freedom requires the bondage of another, it is not truly freedom. As Emma Lazarus once said, “Until we are all free, we are none of us free.” Until human slavery is abolished in every form, we are all captive.

In his now famous Fourth of July speech, Frederick Douglass declared, “What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is a constant victim.” Though these words were spoken in the 1800s, they’re just as true today when we consider the gross injustice of modern slavery.

“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.” (Proverbs 31:8-9)

Writing Freedom

Blog_PaperAndPenIt’s impossible for one person to combat all the injustices of our world, but it is possible to do something. I may not feel I have anything of significance to contribute to the needs of our day, but even if I give the little I have, I can make a difference. My hands may be empty, but when I open them I will find I have something to give.

The most powerful instrument my hands have ever held is a pen. Through it, I communicate my thoughts. Through it, I can cry out against injustice. Through it, I can write freedom.

Martin Luther once said, “If you want to change the world, pick up your pen and write.” Others have likened the pen to a mighty sword. Words have the power to turn the tides of battle.

Against the backdrop of slavery, a man of great Christian faith wrote words of freedom from slavery. His name was William Lloyd Garrison. He used the power of the press to hasten the liberation of the captives of his day, speaking words of great power in the midst of grave injustice: “Enslave the liberty of but one human being and the liberties of the world are put in peril.”

Words have power to heal or to destroy, to build up or to tear down, to bring peace or summon war. As for me, I want my words to heal, to build, and to bring peace. I want my pen to write freedom.

Blank Pages

Blog_BlankPageThere are few things that trouble me more than a blank page. I’m a writer. Words wait impatiently inside, begging for escape. And yet here I sit, staring blankly at a blank page.

Those things that trouble me more than a blank page are the very issues I want to write about. Injustice. Violence. Racism. Slavery. Innocence lost, stolen, from our children.

And yet I wrestle to find the right words.

We come into this world a blank page, waiting to be filled. There is much good to be written upon us, and through us. Yet the evil pen strikes, stealing order and beauty from our story, replacing it with chaos and confusion. How I want my words to speak life and light into the death and darkness that seek to overtake the page.

It doesn’t seem fair that those who would seek to twist our world into something ugly have the greatest platform. Those who hunger and thirst for goodness are silenced, while the voice of hatred prevails. Yet we are not as powerless as we may think.

I came across these verses recently: “You hear, O Lord, the desire of the afflicted, you encourage them, and you listen to their cry, defending the fatherless and the oppressed, in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more” (Psalm 10:17-18) and, “’Because of the oppression of the weak and the groaning of the needy, I will now arise,’ says the Lord” (12:5).

Will not the Giver of Words grant us the right words in due season to speak to the injustices of our generation, and to bring truth and life where there is deception and death? Will not the maker of the tongue loosen it to speak order into the chaos and confusion? If our heart is for the afflicted and oppressed, will he who hears their deepest cries not empower us to labor on their behalf?

Love and Freedom

Beyond_LoveSetsFree

True love involves self-sacrifice, not self-gratification. It’s when we lay down our lives for the love of another that we find life that is truly life, and love that is truly love. After all these years of fruitless searching, the most complete definition of love is found in ancient words: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” (1 Cor 13:4-8) #50ShadesOfTrueLove

About that Day When Everyone’s Irish

What do you think of when the calendar reads March 17? The color green and three-leaf clovers? Rainbows, leprechauns, and pots of gold? Bagpipes, blarney stone, and a little thing called luck?

You might not think of slavery—of a life devastated by separation from home and family. Of a young man trapped in a foreign land, bound in chains. Or of this same man, miraculously brought to escape only to willingly return to the land that held him bound, and all for love. You may not think these things, for this is the story that often goes untold.

Where I live, St. Patrick’s Day is a festive holiday for the Irish and non-Irish alike. Green-painted people roam the streets, some with tall green hats or shamrocks springing from their heads. Thousands flock to the parade and all the after-parties, sharing a toast to the day when everyone’s Irish. Even the river goes green. But are we aware of the haunting yet heroic story behind the day?

While he is often presumed to have been Irish, Patrick was actually from what we now know as Great Britain. And while he is deemed a saint, his life was not always all that saintly. His story is tragedy turned epic.

As a teen, he was taken captive by godless men and sold into slavery. At the time, he’d vehemently rejected the faith for which he is now known, but life as a slave opened his eyes to the powerful yet loving hand of God in his life. There in Ireland—far from all he knew and loved, he found the forgiveness of God. After six years of slavery, he escaped on a ship and returned to his homeland.

A few years after his return, Patrick had a vision calling him to make the ultimate sacrifice—to leave his family, this time willingly, and to return to the people who had enslaved him. I can’t imagine what he must have felt, and how he must have wrestled. To return to those who had treated him with such cruelty, and to preach a message of love and forgiveness? Only one who knew such love and forgiveness could complete such a mission. And Patrick knew.

He knew he was no saint. He knew he needed forgiveness. And he knew that forgiveness came as a result of God’s great sacrifice for him. It was gratitude for this love that moved him to sacrifice, as well—and not for those it was easy to love. He nobly sacrificed for those who had stolen his very life. And that degree of sacrifice is the essence of true love. Can we toast to that?

Source: About that Day When Everyone’s Irish