Love and justice. We need both. Love doesn't mean feeling a certain way. It means actions that care for others. Justice doesn't mean an abstract notion of fairness, or punishing transgressors, but a system of government, laws, policy, enforcement, and public sentiment that prioritizes the well-being of all over the privileges of some.
We can disagree over specifics, but when we take one short step back from concrete policies to the values behind them, our blind spots come clear. Just after a friend told me that his nephew had been shot dead by a relative, the New York Times reported that January 23rd had seen the eleventh school shooting in 2018. To our shame as a country, we have failed to protect all citizens in order to privilege a virtually unregulated use of lethal objects by a few, and the profits of those who equip them.
While this injustice remains, love is at work. In a Momastery blog post called, "Share this with all the schools, please" Glennon Doyle explains the systematic efforts, over years, of one math teacher to identify and remedy the kind of alienation among her students that could lead to another Columbine-style school shooting. With math! And love.
http://momastery.com/blog/2014/01/30/share-schools/.
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