I get a daily e-mail from Sojourners. It’s called Verse and Voice. There is a daily scripture and a daily quote that has something to do with the scripture. I read it, more or less, every day. Some days I’m overwhelmed and I don’t read it.

I can still remember the first time I encountered the scripture that came with today’s verse. It hit me right between the eyes. I was so taken with it, that I wrote it down on an index card and put it on the refrigerator so I could read it everytime I opened the door. And I did. It was a long time ago that I heard that verse … we had the old battleaxe avocado green refrigerator in our townhouse. But I can picture the index card on the freezer door. I had to write small to get it all in, because I didn’t just put the two verses that Sojourners sent … I had a whole bunch more for context. For weeks I would pause to read it whenever I opened the freezer. It took my breath away; my heart fell and broke with God’s at the poverty of our injustice to each other.

Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands at a distance; for truth stumbles in the public square, and uprightness cannot enter. Truth is lacking, and whoever turns from evil is despoiled. The Lord saw it, and it displeased [God] that there was no justice.
– Isaiah 59:14-15

But I had never quite considered it as close to home as the author of today’s quote did. In general, I tend to take a global view of things and some times have a hard time seeing the trees for the forest (I’m quite certain that’s why my house is so messy … I just see the big mess and cannot clean it up 😉 ). Nonetheless, I was quite taken aback by Peter Horsfield’s quote for the day and his perspective on forgiveness:

Unfortunately, though we often talk about forgiveness within the church, very often by the way we deal with things—attempting to suppress conflict, not making judgments, keeping things secret, not enforcing the ethical conditions we talk about, not holding the powerful accountable—we actually create a situation that stops people from being able to forgive.

It’s quite a lot to chew on … how justice, mercy and the ability to forgive all walk down the road together, hand in hand. They are, it would seem, interdependent upon each other.