I wanted to write something today around the biblical concept of "righteousness." It may not mean what you think it means.

But, I'm thinking instead about my father.

Today, as I write, it's Derby Day in Louisville, Kentucky and around the world. The first Saturday in May was a favorite among days on my father's calendar. Derby Day, for the uninitiated, has nothing to do with hats. Well, actually, hats do play a significant role on Derby Day. Big, bodacious hats. However, Derby Day is more about horses than hats. But, then again, Derby Day, for me, is more about my dad than horses.

My dad was born with a cleft palate. Although his palate was surgically repaired when he was a child, complications ultimately led to profound hearing loss. By the time I was an adult, my father was virtually deaf.

Our family wrote notes to keep dad involved in our conversations. There were small, lined yellow tablets in every corner of my parents' home. I have memories of my mother faithfully transcribing conversations in her beautiful, left-handed script. She'd periodically hand the notepad to dad who would smile and nod and perhaps interject a thought or answer a question.

Truth be told, however, our notes became more and more succinct. Conversations were summarized rather than transcribed; dad would often nap in his chair while the rest of us quietly visited. My father, already an introvert by nature, in time surrendered to his loss of hearing and became something of a social recluse.

Dad lost more than conversation with the loss of his hearing.  

He lost a sense of community.

Then one day he suffered a debilitating neurological disease. He spent several painful days in St. Joseph's Hospital in Burbank. However, something remarkable happened the day he was released. Somehow, inexplicably, his hearing was restored. The doctor offered an explanation, but warned his hearing was temporary. As we drove away from the hospital I asked my dad, "You've got your hearing back for about twenty-fours. What do you want to do?"

"I want to go to the movies. I want to see Michael Keaton in Batman." Not what I expected, but we headed directly to the theater.

Sure enough, dad lost his hearing within hours; but within a few years, he recovered his hearing in one ear through an astonishing surgical procedure known as a Cochlear Implant. One day following his surgery my phone rang. It was my father, "How are you?," he matter-of-factly inquired. I wept with gratitude. A short time later, Kathy and I were in Louisville, Kentucky. We had lunch at Churchill Downs, home to Derby Day. I called my father from the track, and we shared the experience over the phone.

When my father's hearing was restored, conversation was restored.  

But--more importantly--his sense of community was restored.

Which actually leads me back to the biblical concept of righteousness. Did you know that biblical righteousness (Hebrew, tsedaqah; LXX, dikaiosyn�) is a judicial term used to describe justice that restores the acquitted to community. Righteousness then is primarily a status--not, generally speaking, a virtue. The beneficiary of righteousness assumes both the benefits and responsibilities of being in covenant relationship to the community.

Come to think of it then, my dad's story is a lovely metaphor of biblical righteousness.  

Relationship to community. Lost. And restored.

Regardless of where you land on the spectrum of religious opinion--to the left or to the right; progressive or conservative--where do you invest the greater energy: inclusion or exclusion?

How does the call to righteousness shape your faith and practice?

Is it possible to be oriented toward inclusion without compromising your convictions?