Justice Hounds

I have a four year old justice hound for a son. If you have one of these living in your house (it doesn't have to be a child; my son comes by it honestly from my wife!) you already know what I'm talking about. His life is governed by one basic rule: Fairness. Life must be fair or something is dreadfully wrong.

My son is fairly athletic and very coordinated. My daughter on the other hand....is not. My son hits baseballs thrown to him overhand, my daughter hits walls walking around the house. My son jumps off high things and lands cat like on his feet, my daughter trips over her own shoe laces and lands clown like on the floor. But she is sooooooo stinkin' cute. I digress.

The other day the two were racing down the hall and without much imagination you can probably guess that my son, won. (Not only is he faster and more athletic, but he's also 16 months older.) Then the drama unfolded:

Enter over protective father of his beautiful but uncoordinated daughter (OFBUD):

OFBUD: Son, why don't you race again and let your sister have a head start.
SON: (thinking beating her with a head start would prove his greatness) Sounds good.
OFBUD: Daughter, why don't you stand here (pointing to location at South end of couch)
Son, why don't you stand here (pointing to location at North end of couch)
SON: That's too much of a head start.
OFBUD: (secretly wanting daughter to win one race in her life) It's ok, it will make the race more fun for your sister.
SON: (becomes increasingly uncertain about winning short race with sister having such a
big head start.)
OFBUD: Go!

Two kids race down hall, daughter edges out son in close race.

SON: (music builds to a crescendo and then cuts in dramatic silence) IT'S NOT FAIR!
OFBUD: Lighten up kid, it's ok for your sister to win once in a while (OFBUD continues on long narrative of his life with two older brothers and how they let him win once in a while making games/races more fun...blah...blah...blah as he reminds SON that OFBUD also lets son win once in a while) (SON remains in a constant state of tears and wailing)

Drama ends as OFBUD places SON in bed and SON wails himself to sleep with this mantra, "That race wasn't fair". OFBUD is not happy.

If you had been in my house that night you quite likely would have figured a great abuse had taken place. If you're a mandatory reporter like me you might have made a phone call to certain protective services. But alas, the only injustice was indeed -- injustice. An unfair race had been run and the loser was not pleased.

After trying to console my son I was struck by a thought I have not been able to shake. Life is full of unfairities (I don't care if spell check underlines that word, I'm using it!). My son was right in his claim, that race wasn't fair, at least not in the strictest of senses. After all, can you think of any legitimate race where one competitor gets a head start over another? Hardly.

But then something else struck me as I pondered this ridiculous incident (quite honestly, I'm embarrassed to say that I reflected on "The Race" for several hours afterwards). We are all victims of inequity of one kind or another. It hardly seems fair that professional athletes can make millions of dollars entertaining us by hitting a ball, sinking a putt or colliding with another individual, while the pay scale for educators equipping us or our kids is (comparatively) pennies.

My wife and I were watching a recent powerball winner whine because he had to share the giant purse with several other winners. Instead of receiving the grand total of $140+ million dollars, the poor sap only walked away with $25 million. How will he manage I asked myself? Give me a break! How is it fair that an ungrateful swine complaining about an absurd amount of money, receives it? My wife and I are ecstatic about receiving $25 to our favorite little restaurant, let alone receiving a pitiable $25 million! So we played the game, "what would you do if...." you won $25 million? (For anyone out there with $25 million to give-a-way, we'd gladly back up our claims of only keeping $500,000 for ourselves and giving the remainder away!) And I was left wondering, how is this fair?

It isn't.

But is it any more fair or equitable that my wife and I have a humble but nice home, we have two cars, satellite TV and a pair of iPods while 75% of the world doesn't even own one car? Or the fact that nearly 80% of the people in this world don't own a house or property? Where's the justice in that? Is it fair that I can buy bottled water at any store I visit, or if I choose I could just drink the water from my tap, while over 40% of the world's population doesn't have clean drinking water?

I think you get my point. Fairness is really about a perspective and so often when we decry inequity, we're really decrying inequity from our vantage point. If we could just step back and see things from some one else's eyes, life might not seem so unfair. As I thought back to my son's race I realized that heart of the issue wasn't justice, at least, not a justice that would rule in favor of his sister. As I think back to the 25 million dollar whiner, I'm not really seeking justice for him, either.

That's the problem with "fairness" -- when you hop to the other side of the fence you get a very different perspective. Was it fair that my two week old daughter had to be readmitted to the hospital with RSV concerns in January? Well it depends, would I rather have been the family right next to our room that was admitted on the same day but extended their stay by seven days? Suddenly two days doesn't seem all that unfair.

I guess that's why the Bible tells us that "godliness with contentment is great gain" because if I can get a right perspective about God and the cards HE has "dealt", then maybe I can be content with what is happening realizing that in the end, it's not about my equity as much as it is about finding joy in what I do have and where I presently am. Looking for fairness can destroy my circumstantial happiness but searching for contentment replaces it with joy. Now if I could just get my hands on 25 million......

That's life; life between the sermons.