The Chinese Opium-Smoker

The Chinese Opium-Smoker by Anonymous

Your inner life will require an ongoing exploration as rigorous as your excavation of the external, global structures of oppression and social sin. If your inward and outward journey becomes interwoven, your life and witness will have opportunity to flourish. If they are alienated from one another, and your inward journey is neglected, your outward journey, regardless of the intensity of your commitment, eventually will start to disintegrate, with self-inflicted wounds likely to injure others and undermine the causes to which you committed your life.

Former politico, long-time activist, and faith leader Wes Granberg-Michaelson (Without Oars: Casting Off into a Life of Pilgrimage) looks at a life in activism. advocacy, and ministry to reveal four key discernable movements of a lifelong soul journey to God's justice. He's also witnessed these elements consistently in the lives of others devoted to both soul-care and justice. Now he offers these four key movements for anyone at any age wanting to step into the entwined lineage of justice and soul work. While all experience it, few justice leaders talk about in the often exhausting effort of their work, and how critical soulwork--spiritual formation--is for sustaining a life of outward social witness.

Culled from the wisdom of decades of leadership experience in global ecumenical initiatives, religious organizations, and social justice movements, this book combines tenacity of vision with the groundedness of soul that has sustained Granberg-Michaelson even as it offers support to others engaged in the work for a lifetime and beyond.