For example, in the large sessions I attended at Urbana, I heard a lot about the pain in the world. I saw that there were starving and hurting people. I was also told that I am self-centered for Facebooking and Twittering. I heard the stories of immigrants who have nothing and are desperately trying to survive. I was shown the magnitude of my consumption habits. And Shane Claiborne even told me how evil it is to live in empire that hurts instead of helps the world. I got the message. I felt guilty. I understood that I should care for others. But nowhere did I hear what I should be doing instead. I heard loud and clear what is wrong with the world, but nothing about what I need to do to make it right.

And these are the sorts of messages that students and churches are hearing over and over these days.

Don't get me wrong, I'm overjoyed that message is getting out. We have to be confronted with the pain in the world and the truth about how our political and economic choices are contributing to it. The church has been silent for far too long about how to truly love our neighbor and care for the oppressed. But unless we are resourcing people at the same time with tangible ways they can be making a difference today, all we are selling is hollow idealism.

I had that conversation at Urbana, then I got on the plane to come home. On the plane next to me was one of the lead builders of the Earthship community in Taos, New Mexico. The Earthships are fascinating (and well worth the visit if you are ever in the area) – they are basically homes that are built from recycled materials and dirt and made to be off-the-grid and sustainable. They use the sun and wind and earth to heat and cool the home. All water is collected from the rain and used 4-5 times. They leave a light footprint on this earth. Well, this guy spent most of the plane ride talking about ways to make sustainable living a practical reality for every person in the world. He understands that the Earthships are a tad out there for the average person, but he was full of forward-thinking ideas as to how to make sustainable living doable for everyone. As he was talking, I realized that this was what was missing at Urbana and in most Christians discussions about justice. We focus so much on the negatives that we fail to actually make a positive difference. We need to be just as creatively full of ideas as this Earthship guy. If we want to make a difference we need to be out there resourcing any and everyone with doable everyday ways of how we can be loving and serving others.

I know a lot of people who live/write/talk about justice issues are often wary of suggesting practical steps for others to follow. I understand they don't want to create a new legalism or limit the ways people can love others. But people are desperate for guidance. They want to do something but have no idea where to begin. Or they think they have to wait until they have enough time or resources to start. And then they end up getting mocked or condemned for talking about justice but not actually living it out. But what if we changed that? What if we stopped being afraid of telling people what they should do and just do it already? Not in a domineering or legalistic way, but as friends sharing resources – equipping each other to serve. If I can see examples of how others like me are serving others, I can have a better idea of what I can be doing as well. This isn't hopeless, we don't have to get bogged down with guilt or doom and gloom scenarios, we just need to be more like the hippie guy living in a mud hut in the New Mexican desert and just figure out the creative yet practical ways to start living differently today.

Jamie asked -

I get so overwhelmed with the interconnectedness of justice and consumerism. I feel sometimes like I have no choices. How do we even live as humans in America without going completely off the grid?

I think there are a lot of people out there who would say the only answer is to go off the grid. We already have all sorts of intentional communities and communes that do their best to go off the grid to some extent. And I respect and even admire that. But for as often as I am labeled an idealist, I am a very practical person. In my opinion, it just isn't feasible for everyone to step off the grid. Or even for, say, all justice minded Christians to do so.

Part of the problem with that is sustainability. There are just too many people to totally abandon the infrastructures that are currently in place. We still have to eat and have clothing and shelter – we need those structures to survive. Sure it is possible for groups of 50-100 to remove themselves from the system or for powerful countries to force smaller non-industrial countries to live in primitive conditions. But New York City can't just step off the grid.

Why? Because the way many people remove themselves from the grid these days is by surviving on the excess waste and remnants of that grid. For example, the freegans who live off of dumpster diving survive only because the rest of us throw away perfectly good food. Veggie-mobiles often run on the used fry oil from fast food restaurants. The earthship recycled homes are built from the discarded tires and glass bottles of others. I think what they all do are fantastic ways to reduce consumption and waste in this world, but they are not sustainable solutions. If we were not creating this waste to begin with, then people couldn't live this way. If everyone stepped off the grid in the paradigms we have available at the moment, we couldn't survive.

But I am also not comfortable with the idea that living justly is therefore only for certain people. Sure, some people can step off the grid in those ways, but it isn't feasible (for a variety of reasons) for everyone to do so. They can be off the grid redeeming the waste the rest of us produce. Others of us through need to be working within the system to make it more just. We have to act to reduce our own waste, and to call the system to take a hard look at itself. I might despise the grid, but sometimes it takes working from within to affect change in the long run.

Justice has to be everyday and doable for it to make an impact. Subvert the system and improving the system are just two sides of the same coin. Both take a lot of work, and we may never see the outcomes, but we can each do our part wherever we are at.