Those were the words that stuck out, in neon, in heavy-handed pristine form, those were the words that made an impression. I got an email from a friend who wished those things upon her recipients, and I realized that its been awhile since I thought of those two words together.

A strange juxtaposition, love and justice. I usually think about them separately, love; justice. Love is the stuff of 95% of the songs we hear on the radio, is the substance of many of our relationships, and is a unique human condition that many long for, many already have. Justice is one of those hard words, seemingly elusive nowadays, with wars that feel wrong between the amount of cash we stick into it and their horribly violent externalities - of men rounded up to be detained indefinitely, of Muslims and Arabs attacked because of their attackers’ crude interpretation of justice, of lives ruined, shade by shade.

Justice is just a word to me; its teeth have been mangled, cut out, destroyed. Maybe the teeth have turned in, devouring the monster that is democracy.

But I open my mailbox and I see this sparkling thing - love and justice. These things were wished upon me on this spectacular evening - it is Diwali and Eid is not too far away. Its a new year and I see a sparkling thing that provides hope, that maybe justice can happen, that it is those moments that we each work with love that opens up the box of justice. That those individual pieces of love that we work with can make it easy to open it up, and those small victories we celebrate open up the box just a little, a smidgen.

Smidgens can add up. Until I start counting, I’ll wish everyone Eid Mubarak and a fabulous Diwali.

Posted by Vivek on Saturday, October 21st, 2006 at 10:13 pm.