Justice is a complicated matter. On the one hand, there seems to be, what you might call, natural justice. This is the natural order of the natural world; bigger animals eat smaller animals to survive. Evolution sort of becomes the deciding factor if a species makes it. The rain falls and the crops grow. The animals eat those crops and then die to fertilize the soil so more crops can grow and the wheel turns. The natural world seems to have this deterministic order to it; it may seem like chaos; natural disasters, asteroids slamming into planets, the big band that started it all; but there is some kind of justice to all of that too. Some kind of cosmic balance; universal scales that tip this way and that.
And then there is the justice of humanity. Humans are so interesting because we so often turn away from the natural world and the order of things; we like to make our own order. We like to use those giant spaghetti muscles inside our skulls to make laws and rules and organizations and Universities and systems. I want to believe these things humans create started off as just; as good and moral and ethical. I choose to believe that, if you peel away all the bullshit, humanity is good at heart. I actively choose to believe this even if there are so many things that point to the opposite. But either way, we make the rules and the governments and the systems that dole out justice as we deem it to be true; we don’t look to the stars or the rain or the clouds to tell us what is right and wrong; we make those things up for ourselves.
Now, some turn to religion for how to live a just life. And that is fine; although I ascribe to no particular religion, believing in a system can be helpful to some. It is sad when those systems, like so many others humans create, cause harm to people those systems deem ‘unworthy’; those systems will not only spit those folks out but will actively hurt them. Is this justice? To exclude? To harm? You can make up your own mind about that, but many humans serve justice through their belief in religion.
So the justice of the natural world, the justice of the human world and the justice of the spiritual world. These are the three justices I can suss out, and here we have card number 11 in the 22 card Major Arcana; this red-robed man on a throne; notice the draped shroud behind him. I often look at this card and wonder what exactly is behind that shroud; is the all and powerful Oz back there, handing out justice and punishment willy-nilly? Or some kind of deity; never seen, only working behind the curtain to decide who receives that holy justice? Or some kind of leader, a politician, working to create laws that will hurt some and benefit others? In one hand this figure of Justice holds a sword; I see this as humanity’s law; the minds of humans creating the rules and the blade that will enforce them. In the other hand, a scale; perfectly balanced. This reminds me of the natural law; gravity, day and night; the natural binaries of the universe that seem to hang in such delicate balance at all times. And what of the spiritual law? The law of faith and belief? Perhaps the crown upon the head; the symbol of the king and the ruler and the god all in one.
Have you ever had to make a decision that was hard, that cost you something, but you made it anyway because you knew it was right? Have you ever had to be courageous enough to stand up for what you know to be the right thing to do? The courage to do the right thing when it is also the hard thing is rare to find; that courage is a special kind and it is usually the vehicle of justice. So whatever form of justice drives you, whatever ideals about justice help form your moral compass; name those things. Be true to them. Understand them.
Theodore Parker was a minister born in Lexington, Kentucky in 1810. He studied at the Harvard Divinity School and was a transcendentalist. He once said:
“I do not pretend to understand the moral universe. The arc is a long one. My eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by experience of sight. I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.”
This quote was later paraphrased by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. when he said:
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
Indeed; the natural justice of the universe and the faith-based justice of religion and the person-made justice of humanity all rolled up into one beautiful, heavy and foundational statement about the future of our species on this planet. The important part, the part of ‘conscience’, is often forgotten. We are not riders on this cosmic journey; we are the journey. We cannot simply wait for the universe to bend toward justice; we must enact and fulfill that destiny ourselves. So while the figure in the 11th card in the Major Arcana sits there and waits for Justice, Parker and King and so many others tell us that we must act; we must will the universe to bend this way. We must transform the potential
into the kinetic and we must do it through our own conscience; through our own sense of justice; through a synthesis of the three flavors mentioned here. We cannot see it; no amount of calculus will give us an answer. But we feel it. We can feel justice, like a sixth sense. So lean into that feeling and bend, even if just a little.