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I am a pastor and a clinical psychotherapist. My life's passion is defining healthiness from a human perspective and paralleling it to the holiness of God, divine perspective. Shifting perspectives creates a paradigm that is alongside of rather than over and against. The parakalein of God and the paradoxes of humanity are redefined. Humanity is all about winning and yet we are losing ground everywhere. Divinity is all about letting go of the desire to win and the fear of loss. The Divine embraces the world with loving care regardless of anything.

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Charity and Justice

Posted by Don Paine


"Charity is not a substitute for justice, it never will be." Jonathan Kozol 


Recently on sports radio I heard the story of "Enforcers".  They are hockey players who are hired by their respective professional hockey teams to fight.  To initiate fights in defense of team mates who were "hit" by an opposing defense men, whether intentionally or not.  They are hired to intervene for an attack on his own player or to intimidate the opponent.  When asked how he lives with the fact that he was hired not for his hockey skills but for his fighting skills. He said, "I give a lot to charity and actually volunteer good will services to offset the violence I do on the hockey rink.


While he knows that his internal system needs and calls for balance, to infer that any amount of good will, acts of kindness or benevolence offsets any amount of violence or acts of cruelty or injustice is itself an injustice.


Intentional acts of kindness must be a balanced with intentional acts of justice.  As Micah reminds us, acts of justice are both merciful and humble not a cover up for guilt or a sense of wrongness.


"No acts of goodness or kindness, or charity are a substitute for justice, they may ease the conscience but they leave the heart of the problem untouched and in need of transformation by God's love that surrenders love to injustice to transform that injustice into love and perennial and perpetual acts of kindness."
                                     - Donald L. Paine, UCC minister and Marriage and Family Therapist

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