Said the L'Arche Assistant to the Social Worker

"Sometimes 'helping people' just seems like an excuse to control them — and feel good about yourself for doing it."

Post-Election Meditation

As _______(e.g. activists, Christians, anarchists, Quakers, progressives, subversives, radicals, leftists, shit-disturbers, protesters, whatever... as people of good will),

Are we right to demand that our governments make justice and peace the basis of all their policies and actions if we have failed to build livable communities that are free from coercion and hierarchy? Can we demand that corporations end the exploitation basic to their economic life if we have personally failed to find ways to make a living that are sustainable, and free from any form of oppression? Why should they take us seriously, or believe that such things are possible in the "real world," and on a grand systemic level, if it has proved un-achievable on a small-scale, personal level?

(What about what Jesus said about considering other's sin to be like a speck, and our own like a plank – and our need to deal with our own, before addressing others? Or the parable about the servant who is faithless in the little things never being entrusted with the great ones?)

How exactly do we imagine our utopia of peace, justice, and sustainability would be achieved? By coercive laws backed up by force?