If you choose, you can keep the commandments, they will save you. (Sirach 15:15)

Arrest me for sitting on a bus? You may do that.  (Rosa Parks)

There’s something about sitting where you have been told not to sit. At the front
of a bus. At a counter for lunch. Right up at the feet of Jesus.
My mother walked into our independent, fundamental Baptist church and sat on
the pew wearing a pair of blue Levi’s.
She was invited to help the school students with their theater projects, but it was
assumed she’d wear a full-length skirt.
She was scolded, told to change, then to come back.
That’s okay, she said, then packed her bag and drove home.
Every single student she was set to work with followed and they rehearsed in our
living room, learning techniques, sitting at her feet.

The words of Drew Jackson.

Blessed are they that follow the law of the Lord!
Give me discernment, that I may observe your law and keep it with all my heart.
(Psalm 119: 1, 34)

I watch for a bend toward justice.
I remember the names: Sandra, Eric, Trayvon, Philando, Tamir.
I shut my heart against lies
I put my shoulder into working for the truth.
I weep over dead grade-school students, tiny hands and feet playing no more.
I hate the idols that surround me, symbol of systems claiming power that is not
theirs.
I search to discern what I have missed.
My prayers flicker between word and deed; my soul is restless not to be ignored.
I fight, I fight, I fight, and I will not complain,
Because it is a privilege to wrestle for the truth.
Did I forget a commandment? Have I failed in some way?