On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life Through Great Books

by Karen Swallow Prior

Justice in this world will ever and always be a matter of correcting, balancing—ever progressing (or regressing), never perfected. The injustice my friend’s grandmother experienced in being a slave did not end with her life. That injustice forever shaped her children, and her children’s children, including my friend. My friend forgives those injustices. But even forgiveness cannot negate the ripple effects of the past. To pretend otherwise is itself a further injustice. With the endless injustices and causes that overwhelm us today, it’s common for us to set these concerns against one another as though one cause must compete against another: we must choose the cause of women or the poor, of religious liberty or the environment. We often think of justice as parcels of land, and we concern ourselves with the size and distribution of its lots. But justice is less like finite land and more like the wildflowers that grow there, continually spreading as they bloom and re-seed themselves. Justice—like beauty—is rooted in infinity.