Sacred Spaces in the Law

Description

What is sacred about the law? I think there’s a tendency – and I’m as guilty of it as anyone – to point out the flaws in the legal system, especially in the U.S. And even to say that it’s broken, maybe irrevocably.

But what if we imagine the law as sacred? What if we recollect, maybe not in our memory but in our bones, how many generations – how many millennia – humans have been puzzling out how to govern as a sacred obligation, asking: what is just, what is fair, what is right? Not getting it “right” but still, doing our best?

And what if we see ourselves as part of that lineage, that sacred trust: imperfect, to be sure – ut still, always doing our best. It feels like there’s sacredness in that – maybe even something holy, in our hallowed profession.