Standing For What Matters

Sometimes sitting on the sideline can't be an option, even when you are amed only with reason and your challenger carries a bomb. Tonight I sat through a community meeting because a company is bringing a recovery/ treatment center to our quiet community...ok, I say quiet, but I think I might be more accurate to say my raging community.
The individuals who came here from Utah on a moments notice to provide accurate information about what they do and don't do were met with heckling, shouting, called liars, and treated in a most uncharitable manner. I was pretty frustrated that my neighbors were so rude...and were content to remain ignorant...and did I say, they were enraged?
Going into the meeting I wasn't sure of anything except that I couldn't sit this out. The previous two days were a flood of bully emails circulated through our community email service (that a tireless individual voluntarily maintains). It was obvious that the most vocal in the community were not at all informed.
To be fair, the community was responding in fear, in ignorance. But the problem is, they wanted to maintain a mob mentality, and under no circumstance did they want to hear anything that didn't confirm or affirm their fear.
Why did I not sit on the sideline and let the company take their public throttling and get on a plane and go back to Utah to figure out how to move forward? I am not a lawyer or a city official...I can't speak reason to a frenzied crowd...nobody can. Mind you there was nobody there who could be made happy under the current scenario of this company coming into their back yard, so why am I ok with it?
Because I know we have a need here. My friend buried her 17 year old daughter after a heroin overdose...my neighbor is a recovering alcoholic...because I would rather have an addict in treatment than Know they are driving down my street in an altered state without a place to go for help.
Moreover, because the Christ in me is tired of pretending that social justice is someone else's job. I would trade homes with the neighbors who are afraid. If I had the resource, I would buy their homes and send them off with a blessing. But I can't do that. What I could do, I did. I extended southern hospitality to the fine folks, truly lovely people from Utah. I apologized that they were treated so harshly when they had followed every rule and law in purchasing the land and getting the appropriate permits.
I shared a meal with them, my new friends...I simply did the next right thing...I stood for something...I stood for civility, for reason, for being decent. That was not the norm tonight, and that bothers me.
So, while I will not become an activist, I will be more mindful to take a stand for what matters, and to me, treating people with respect matters. Extending grace matters. Speaking truth in love matters.
Stand for what matters...the sideline has enough representation.