Today, on Martin Luther King Day, I am grateful for teachers because I have a lot to learn in this life. I am an upper-middle class, white woman and a student at a private university in the United States- an education for which my parents are graciously paying. My point is, that in my experience, I often have to choose to see injustice, because I could easily live my life in blissful ignorance. That is my privilege.  I am also a woman of faith. I have faith in the Spirit of love, who speaks through the fight against oppression.  My faith has propelled me to do one thing: listen. While I fully admit that I do not always listen well, in the times that I have, I have learned  listening is often the key to progress. So after doing my best to listen, in a year in which much has happened in my life and my city’s life, I want to share what I have heard.

Last semester, I spent four months in an alternative study-abroad program in El Salvador called Casa de la Solidaridad, learning what it means to accompany a community and to be in solidarity with the oppressed and suffering. I encountered injustice in the daily lives of my Salvadoran friends, and I had to learn how to walk with, rather than work for.  I learned that, sometimes, I couldn’t fix that which is broken in the moment.  It sometimes has to be enough to have hope and live each day with gratitude.

The difficult realities of the Salvadorans were daily reminders of my privilege while I was abroad, but the people I walked with still welcomed me into their struggle of facing these realities. In hearing heartbreaking stories of war, violence and extreme poverty, I struggled to maintain hope and faith in a God who could allow such evil in the world. This is certainly not a new or unique crisis, but what I learned was that my crisis in itself was somewhat of a privilege. My Salvadoran teachers believe and trust in God because their faith is inseparable from their struggle for justice, and their survival and hope depends on that struggle.

How do I return to this city and walk in solidarity with the struggle for justice that persists in our community and in our streets? Once again, I need to listen.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famously said in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” He also said, “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”

MLK was calling us to an active faith. He was calling us to a faith that moves us to stand in opposition to injustice, even when it is uncomfortable. The witnesses of Archbishop Oscar Romero, (who was recently named a martyr by the Catholic Church) and the six Jesuits who were murdered at the University of Central America during the civil war, live on in the faith of many of the Salvadoran people. These priests boldly spoke out against injustices that the poor faced in their country because their faith demanded it. Consequently, the people of El Salvador continue to remember these martyr’s lives and draw inspiration from them as they encounter injustice in their daily lives.  They walk forward in search for justice because they have to. They encounter this struggle in their faith every day because they do not have a choice.

I have a choice. I can choose to live in the SLU bubble with the privilege of an excellent education, and pray from the safety and comfort of my new apartment or College Church that one day there will be peace in this city. That people who live in more difficult realities than my own will be able to rise above those realities.

But there is another choice. I can choose to see injustice, and I can choose to encounter this injustice in the context of my faith life, even when it’s confusing or uncomfortable. I can choose engage in dialogue inside and outside the SLU community about the state of St. Louis.  I can choose to listen to the teachers who stand all around me: my professors, fellow students and fellow St. Louis residents, even when I don’t immediately understand their viewpoints or frustrations. I can actually leave the SLU bubble and engage issues of race, gender, sexuality and socioeconomic status.

What does it mean to have faith if I do not listen to those who have no choice but to have faith? As a Catholic Christian, what does it mean to go to Mass on Sunday, but refuse to listen to and be in solidarity with the voices of the struggle against injustice? It means a privileged faith; one that I can choose to step outside of, if I choose. What are you choosing?