I realized something today about my blogging habits. Most of my posts are along the lines of "today I ate…" and "yesterday I went…"  I don't really blog beyond the ins and outs of life. Not that that's bad (I know that both of you that read this are fully interested in what I are for dinner last night), but I want to blog about other things as well. I want to blog about cultures, and spirituality and maybe even some politics along the way. I realized today why I don't post as much about those things. I don't post that much because I always feel like I have to have everything figured out and then write a well-researched and documented post.  But seriously, who has time for that? And if you do go that route, then the number of posts is going to seriously diminish as well. I just want to throw some thoughts up here every now and then, without writing research papers for each blog. I just want to write, and maybe even have more questions than answers, or not totally thought out thoughts, because I'm a work in progress. Maybe I'm crazy, but that's the way I think. 

So here is my attempt to do just that. I read a Proverb this morning and it gave me some good food for thought regarding social justice and righteousness. Now, the old Mike would just put off posting because he didn't have the time or energy to write a research paper on that topic (besides, I already did that back in college) and just post about my weekend trip. Not the new Mike, though. I'm going to throw out my thoughts, and they may not be right or include all my thoughts, but here they are. Obviously discussion is warranted and encouraged so give me some feedback here. 

Proverbs 10:2 says that "Treasures gained by wickedness do not profit, but righteousness delivers from mortal danger."

For a long time now, it has really bugged me that righteousness is translated into Spanish as justice. That just didn't seem to make sense when I first realized that. Righteousness carries all these vertical connotations of personal piety, quiet times and prayer, while justice seems to carry a more horizontal meaning, affecting my relationships with my neighbors, as well even as far reaching as the trade agreements I support through my consumerism. I certainly didn't think they could really be the same concept. 

Back to the proverb. The literary style here is antithesis, where one line is contrasted with the next. Here we see 'treasures gained by wickedness (NASB: Ill-gotten gains)' contrasted with righteousness. It's obvious that those treasures are gained by means of injustice and/or oppression (maybe fodder for another post altogether), but what's interesting is that the opposite is described as righteousness. Perhaps the Spanish does get the translation right after all and we need to start thinking about righteousness more in terms of living right and in harmony with others, treating people fairly and standing up against injustice. Maybe it's time to start looking past just our quiet times as what pleases God and start to think about ways we can live out social justice (sounds like something that Micah wrote about awhile back)

Then again, piety sounds a lot easier than justice, doesn't it?