Too many Courtrooms

I sat in Whatcom County Superior Court waiting to see what would happen with the case of another friend of mine. Having met with him regularly in the jail and knowing he was going off to prison for his fifth time (he is 42 and has been in the system since he was 12), I felt a deep sense of futility about our work. Where is the lasting change? Where is real freedom and transformation?

And that is just one man. I sat in the courtroom and saw man after man come before the judge and felt overwhelmed by the needs and brokenness. In addition to these men are all those sitting around me who have as much need.

I thought about when Jesus looked at the crowds that were coming to him and had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Maybe he was feeling overwhelmed, too. So he tells his disciples to pray to the Lord of the harvest and ask Him to send workers into the fields, because the harvest is plentiful and the workers are few.

So this is what I prayed a few weeks ago. And I realize that these people in this room are precisely the people Jesus spent his time with - he was called a friend of sinners and tax collectors. He didn't bring them into the synagogue; he went to their houses...

Rainier Marie Rilke writes in The Voices:

The rich do well to keep silent
for no one cares who or what they are.
But those in need must reveal themselves,
must say: I am blind
or: I am on the verge of going blind
or: nothing goes well with me on the earth...
or: I have a sickly child
or: I have little to hold me together...

And chances are that this is not nearly enough

And because people ignore them as they pass by
a thing; these unfortunates have to sing!

And at times one hears some excellent singing!

Of course, people differ in their tastes:
some would prefer to listen to choirs of boy-castrati

But God himself comes often and stays long
when the castrati's singing disturbs him.