This Washington Post article, Pakistan's Kiln Workers Bricked In by Debt, is an example of indentured sevanthood that keeps people in slavery in so many parts of today's world, through their whole lives, just as their previous and future generations experience.

If you read the article (5 minutes) and have any sense of justice, it can make your blood boil. A few rich kiln owners, perhaps oblivious (and perhaps not) to the slavery and forced poverty of the workers who make their wealth possible, live so estranged from the realities of their own business that they might even think they're doing these kiln workers a favor by providing life-long employment.

Middle- or upper-class consumers who build homes are one layer away in their complicity, perhaps also ignorant of the human cost of the bricks they use.

Stories like this, which are also repeated in dozens of other countries and even within the United States, show how evil can thrive when greed is unchecked, and just how wide greed can reach even to common folks who are part of an economic matrix.

And it's complicated, true. Greed is often accompanied by corruption, entrenched systems, ignorance, and patterns of justice and economics which favor those with resources and options, not those with none; systems whose path of least resistance is to remain unjust. Extreme separation between consumer and producer can exacerbate evil and injustice like this.

The only thing that makes my blood boil even more than this is when naive people complain about "personal responsibility" of the poor (that they don't work hard enough, that they're lazy, that they're welfare sponges) and the inherent "right" of the wealthy to create more of their own wealth at any cost to people who might happen to be lower on the economic ladder. I personally know some of these folks and a surprising (to me) number of them are Christians. Yep, it makes my blood boil because it contradicts what the Bible seems to teach about God's perspective on money and people; and I haven't yet found a way to reconcile this or have some healing, honest conversations.

When will God's kingdom come and God's will be done on earth, among Pakistan's kiln workers, as it is in heaven?

If this touches me or you, we must do something. We MUST do something. I don't give up on prayer, but does it change things NOW for this generation of Pakistani kiln workers, or even for the next generation?

In a country thousands of miles away, from where will light shine or hope come?

The light and hope of Jesus could potentially come from the church, I believe. No slam-dunk. But I do pray for the church, the very poor, tiny minority of believers in Pakistan who follow Jesus. Maybe some of them are brick makers. Many others are street sweepers, sanitary workers.

And I pray for the church in neighboring countries and cultures, and the church all over the world, to seek and find ways to insist on "liberty and justice for all," not just for some.

Brickmaking's fine, someone's gotta do it. But how about a living wage, education, healthcare, nutrition, decent working hours and conditions, profit sharing, and the eradication of indentured slavery for starters? If political and religious conservatives, especially Christians, truly care about moral values, families, people made in God's very image... you'd think they'd be all over issues like this. Hm.

Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves;
defend the rights of all those who have nothing.
Speak up and judge fairly,
and defend the rights of the poor and needy.
- Proverbs 31:8-9