Book Review: An Episcopal Priest Locates the Peaceful Eye of the Justice Storm
A new book by the Rev. Mike Angell titled How Can I Live Peacefully with Justice? arrives during a year when the cry for justice in the nation’s streets—triggered by the apparent murders of Black citizens by police and vigilantes—seems anything but calm. The publisher brands the work as A Little Book of Guidance, but that label is misleading. How Can I Live Peacefully with Justice? is weighty with expansive and helpful insights arising from the author’s efforts to build what Martin Luther King Jr. called “the Beloved Community,” which seems so distant now.
The rector of an Episcopalian church in an inner-ring suburb of St. Louis—my church, as a point of full disclosure—Angell describes marching for racial justice in the wake of Michael Brown’s death, transforming a local laundromat into a once-a-month community center, and partnering with human-rights activists in El Salvador. Angell asks readers to reject a negative “unjust peace”—a mere absence of conflict—that’s based on repression and instead strive for a positive, dynamic peace flowing from wrongs redressed and relationships restored, however tumultuous that process may be.
How Can I Live Peacefully with Justice? is small in the way a gem is small—precisely cut and polished. Angell writes beautifully, persuasively, and with humility, addressing us from his one particular life. He reckons with his inheritance of white privilege, the pitfalls of ego, which are especially deep for clergy, and the struggle and joy of coming out as a gay man. It’s a prerequisite self-examination for achieving the inner equilibrium needed in the fight for justice. Angell explains that it’s “less peace within yourself and more peace with yourself.” Accordingly, he questions his inner “shoulds” when he feels “frustrated, inadequate or entitled” in justice work: “How do I think this meeting should be going? How do I imagine folks should be hearing me? Why do I think my preferred outcomes should be the case?”
In the end, Angell ably answers the question he poses in the title of his book. Make peace with yourself, build relationships of trust, and get set for an adventure. After all, what Angell has in mind “isn’t the calm that comes because the storm has ceased, rather it is a comfort that happens as I get more comfortable riding the waves.” It’s a believable peace for 2020 and beyond.
