If You Wait Until You're Good

I APPRECIATE Kathy Killian Noe’s "The Story Told Through Our Lives" (November-December 1997), in which she advocates not waiting "until we are ‘good,’ or ‘pure,’ or completely disentangled from systems that oppress to begin living out our relatedness to brothers and sisters." In a world where the very word "justice" can feel like a sham, her words encourage me. Our inevitable involvement with unjust structures need not be a recipe for complacency or despair, nor a reason to exhaust ourselves through compulsive attempts at compassion. As best we can and with many failings, we seek to live in ways that breathe forth blessing and liberation.