Giving life the shape of justice

Spirit of Life, come unto me.
Sing in my heart all the stirrings of compassion
Blow in the wind, rise in the sea;
Move in the hand, giving life the shape of justice
Roots hold me close; wings set me free
Spirit of Life, come to me, come to me.  

-- Spirit of Life,  from Singing the Living Tradition
words and music by Carolyn McDade  

Today's #UULent word is justice. Life is pretty random, yet it has an arc, and sometimes we can see and feel that arc bend toward justice. The Civil Rights movement of the 1960s was one such time. We have at least two progressive epochs unfolding in our own era: the slow-then-rapid realization of marriage equality, and now the #BlackLivesMatter movement.

Who, or what, gives life the shape of justice? All weekend, I've been hearing passages from To Kill A Mockingbird read in tribute to Harper Lee, who passed away Friday. The reclusive Alabama author helped give shape to a burgeoning civil rights movement when her novel came out in 1960. Inspired by his white ally Bob Dylan's Blowin' in the Wind and snubbed at a Holiday Inn, Sam Cooke risked his career for the same cause with A Change is Gonna Come.

And the beat goes on: Macklemore, Ryan Lewis and Mary Lambert helped advance marriage equality with Same Love. Kendrick Lamar's Alright and Beyonce's Formation are high-profile musical manifestations of black pride circa 2015-2016. Lin-Manuel Miranda is the toast of Broadway with Hamilton, of which Miranda says, "Our cast looks like America looks now."

Black artists and topics were snubbed by the Oscars this year, but 12 Years a Slave won Best Picture in 2014. The mere nominations of Spotlight and The Big Short as Best Picture nominees for next week's Oscars are victories for justice, with the latter film an especially smart and gleeful blow against the empire, far more bracing than anything that's happening in our savagely dysfunctional politics.

Justice sometimes happens in the courtroom and the corridors of power. But first, it moves in the hands and the hearts and the heads of our artists, our writers, our musicians, and filmmakers -- and then it moves us: to laughter, tears and applause, and then to commitment and action.