Ob Blog

I appreciate the work they're doing, but how, if at all, does it differ from legal aid work which has been going on for a long time? In what way if any is it analogous to microfinance? A key quote is: "Microjustice’s clients pay only a small fee, around $57, which mostly goes to cover court fees with a little left over for the organization’s overhead. The attorneys, all young recent graduates, are paid from grants and foundation funding, though Van Nispen tot Sevenaer hopes the organization can eventually become self-sustaining."

In other words, there's no vision for how to make it self-sustaining yet.

Microfinance's well-established sustainability comes in part from the people being served holding roles of power in the process, so i think the term microjustice raises a great question: what do institutions that provide justice for people of little material means by empowering them look like?

I expect there are many answers to this question, some about things already being done, and others waiting to be called in to existence by the question. One answer that leaps to my mind is Restorative Circles (the correct name).

(Background if you're not familiar with NonviolentCommunication - a core practice of empathy as we teach it is tapping into what's important to someone, what matters to them, by inquiring into what the "need" is behind what thay are saying/doing/experiencing.)

Here's something that comes out of the experience of not stopping empathy after getting to a need, and finding that we can always go deeper and deeper — "Why do i want meaning?" "Because i want to contribute." "And why do i want to contribute?" "Because i care." "And why do i care?" ... I have had this happen many times in self-empathy, one-on-one, and in groups, and have no doubt we could continue with the words forever; but when we are truly present with each need as we come to it, and following the energy, at some point the words stop and we are simply present with...?

The way that i understand this is that "under" all of the needs on any official list, or anyone's short list of needs, there is something else. For myself, i prefer not to give this thing a label. To help in describing what i am talking about, i sometimes list the many labels that i understand other people to be using for this oneness — the universe, love, life, spirit, consciousness, god, wholeness.

(Internally, no label captures it to my satisfaction. Externally, any label i might use for it will 'put off' a significant fraction of the people i might be talking about it with. In the religious context, this resonates with patterns of having many gods who are in some way understood to be all one; or in the case of having one god, having many names for god, and/or a tradition of not saying the name of god. More recently i have come up with five words that i put in large text on a wall in my room at home, that say something to me about what it's like to be present in this way - grace, awe, wonder, mystery, curiousity.)