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Dalton
Roberts |
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We hear a lot about posting the Ten Commandments in the courthouse, but we hear little about the “Jesus Commandment.” He made it short and emphatic: “Judge not.” Recently I tried an experiment. Every time I was agitated with someone and tempted to say judgmental things, I spent at least a day studying them/ Asking questions like, “What caused them to be the way they are? What was their childhood like? What do I see when I look in their eyes? What do I feel when I read their energy?” My first study subject was a woman who had upset a friend of mine so much that I had absorbed some of her “upsetness” and started disliking the woman, too. I looked in her eyes and saw that rabbit-looking-up-at-a-shotgun look. Pure fear. When I was standing a foot from her, I felt scattered energy. The kind of energy I have experienced when my life was unstable, when changes were occurring that I was not ready for, when I was uncertain and did not know what to do. Going through so much fear it showed in her eyes and living from a base of scattered energy, it was no wonder she was making people angry and upset. I discovered that her mother had a lot of babies and little security. She was a compliant, doormat kind of person, often used and taken advantage of. This would be likely to make a child be just like her mother or to reject her mother completely and become full of hate and revenge for men. We either embrace or reject parental examples or we swing uncertainly between the two poles of embracing or rejecting. The woman I was studying seemed to be swinging between those two poles and it was creating fear, depression, uncertainly and instability in her life. Before you switch me for trying to be an amateur psychologist, let me ask you: Was it better for me to judge her blindly or to try and gain some understanding of who she was and how she might have gotten to be that way? I would rather someone would study me as to judge me. To study someone is to honor them. You are saying, “You are God’s creation and worthy of my full, respectful attention.” To judge them is to say, “I don’t need to waste any attention on you. I know you and your kind and it makes no difference what forces influenced you to be like you are, I have decided to dislike you no matter how life may have used and abused you, no matter how rocky the path you have walked. It’s just a lot easier to judge you as unworthy and move on to more important things. You certainly are not important.” I have a friend who sometimes offers medical opinions and says, “My M.D. degree came from a Kmart course.” Well, maybe my psychiatric skills came from a Kmart course but I know it is better to study someone than to judge them. It’s educating yourself about that person. The main reason I wish to not judge is what judging does to my own inner being. It’s like dropping a piece of mud into a clear glass of water. It ruins my energy. It reduces my effectiveness and power as a spiritual being. It has become easier for me to not judge because I see with each passing year how little I know. I am not God. It’s a relief to leave the judging to God. Only the One who knows and sees all is equipped to judge wisely. Jesus didn’t tell the thief on the cross, “Today I am sending you to purgatory to be straightened out.” He said, “Today I am taking you to paradise with me.” That’s my kind of God. I’d like to be a little more like Him. |
