Justice Conference

I decided to attend the Justice Conference about 3 months ago with the intention of trying to understand what Justice really is, and try to understand the meaning of justice, and what a just person looks like. (I had just read Plato’s Republic at the time).   I didn’t really know what to expect so I was a little bit nervous as the dates for the Conference came closer.  I wasn’t sure that I really wanted to attend, whether it would be worth it, I had a lot of stuff to do the week leading up to the conference and I also had a lot of work to be done over the weekend.  I flew in on Friday and got into the hotel at about 3:00 the main conference registration didn’t start until 4 so I had some time to get mentally prepared for the conference.  I took some of that time to plan out doing some of my school work throughout the conference and looking at the schedule to see what it looked like, took a shower and then registered for the conference. 

I went over and the first night was good, there were some interesting speakers, but my mind was elsewhere and I was a little bit out of it because I was tired.  The first day ended at 9:15 when I went back to my room, did some organizing and some work and was in bed asleep by 10:30.  I woke up and got to the conference again at 9:30 in order to hear the end of the first speaker and from this point I started to get excited and enjoy the conference a lot more.  During the lunch break I met a few people at a pizza place right by the convention center from Louisiana.  We had some good conversation that started to engage me in the conference and bring up my spirits.  After they left, I invited someone to sit with me named Maddi.  I am very glad that I did because Maddi is an amazing individual from Seattle, Washington who became a conference buddy (that means we hung out together for most of the rest of the conference).  It was a real blessing for me to meet her and share my experience of the Justice conference with her and share in her experience of the conference as well.  I hope that this is just the beginning of a long friendship. 

A few other highlights of the conference include saying hey to a good family friend Noel Castellanos (a speaker at the Justice Conference), hearing all the rest of the amazing speakers (my favorites were Shane Claiborne, Dr. John Perkins, Dr. Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lisa Sharon Harper, and Claire Diaz-Ortiz), getting Lisa Sharon Harper to sign a copy of her book for me, giving and receiving 97 Free Hugs, meeting a whole bunch of awesome people and hopefully finding cool opportunities to learn and create a more just and peaceful world in addition to giving away free hugs. 

I still have a lot of materials that I received at the conference to go through and process but I am really glad that I decided to stick it out and go even though at first I wasn’t amazingly excited about it.  Thank You Justice 2013 for a great time!!