Judge not, that ye be not judged. —Matthew 7:1 Here it is, another New Year’s Eve, and I can report I am as judgmental as ever. I could make a resolution to “become” less so or simply “judge less.” But that would be fruitless—a gesture as if only to mitigate the harsh judgement of an angry God. He knows the truth about me anyway. Christmastime brings people together in increasingly close quarters until the blessed day is past and we can all go back to our desks, or rooms, or into the great outdoors—where an even more blessed solitude can be found. This year, I’ve been especially aware of how judgmental I am. A friend had challenged me to notice my intrinsic bias against certain kinds of bodies, especially ones abundant with fat. Judging my own self for pillowing had become a compulsion once again, and I wanted to be free of it. December’s many parties offered the context for discovering how effortlessly, how unconsciously I assess the attractiveness of people. This loathsome and obnoxious tendency is one I share with an entire culture, a culture which often values a person largely upon how they appear—how they look, what their work implies about them, who their friends are. That this prejudice is shared, this sense of entitlement to judge others, makes it no less horrifying to possess. My friend’s commission to be sensitive to my own bias made it clear to me I have been health-trolling my college-age cousin. In recent years, she had gained upwards of thirty pounds, and on her small frame the difference in her appearance was dramatic. I would thoughtfully complain to my college-age daughter (didn’t I know better?) that my cousin’s health is compromised. Her beauty is too, I would slur. But as far as I know, her health is just fine. Her fiancé clearly thinks she looks fine. The truth is, my cousin has always seemed genuinely pleased with herself. Her extra weight hasn’t changed that. A family party the week before Christmas gave me the pivot I needed. I didn’t want to think badly of this girl. Hell! I didn’t want to think badly of myself! The only alternative? Don’t make evaluating her appearance part of relating to her. I couldn’t judge her less; I couldn’t judge her, period. When we spoke at the party, I was delighted to discover she had hugs for me--lots of them. Her smile shone as brightly as a candle reflected in tinsel. I felt waves of affection for her. By the end of the evening, I could tell it was love. I am confident my cousin sensed the change in my years-old attitude of judgement and misguided concern for her. Her behavior suggested it, all warmth and resilience. People who are judged feel threatened and defensive not appreciative and open. They know they’re being judged and act accordingly. Which is the real truth behind Jesus’ dictum: when we judge others, we are known that way. People judge us for being judgmental. They are blameless, because they are right. If I don’t want to live in the swamp of Holier-than-Thou, I have only one choice. Resolutions to be better won’t bring me to the new territory. I must be different, not judge at all. I must be willing to grow into loving. I must be love. This is a good time of year to rout out a shortcoming like obsession with appearances. One of Christmas’s most salvific messages is the way God turns the world upside-down with the birth of his poor child. Jesus is vulnerable not just as an infant but as an immigrant, as a member of an occupied people, a rural people. Nothing good is supposed to come from “someone like him.” We know, however, that good lives in him, IS him. Christmas reminds me God isn’t judging. Whether shepherds or kings with their retinues—we are all welcome at the stable. Karen Jessee If you would like to be informed when posts are made on Search and Know, please write to me with "subscribe" in the subject line. Thank you!
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We must not therefore examine the suitability of things to mind and body in order to assess their value, for this is of little importance. It is the will of God that gives to things, whatever they may be, the power to shape Jesus Christ in the depths of our hearts.
Abandonment to Divine Providence, Jean-Pierre de Caussade Admittedly, this quote goes straight to the heart of Christian discipleship. I think it goes straight to the heart of healthy living whatever your religious inclinations. Even before I thought of everything in Jesus language, I was confronting the challenge of learning to live in the present moment with an attitude of acceptance and a “willingness to live with what is.” My circumstances—health, household, family—were in a painful state of disarray. It was difficult for me to understand how Spirit (much less the “will of God”) might be present in my life. I just didn’t get it. I hated what I was going through, and that was that. . . Except it wasn’t, because I never got off the path. I never abandoned discipleship. I kept seeking for that door to knock on, the one Jesus mentioned, the one he implied was always there with God waiting to be discovered on the other side, the inside: the present moment where we can find that Spirit which redeems rotten experiences, deteriorated relationships, crappy health. Happily, I can report I finally found a portal through which to crawl towards a new way of being in difficult circumstances. If God’s will empowers each moment with an opening—the door I can knock on and slide through sideways—then discovery of the moment leads to an encounter with Christ, with the Spirit which is the dynamic movement of God, creating, giving birth to Love in me and every lover, in every person I have chance to meet. De Caussade reminds me that the goal and reward of living is possessing Christ, being Christ, incarnating Christ—bringing the Love which powers the world into view. When I remember I want this Love more than anything, I can more easily accept my experiences and focus my attention less on judgements and more on my desire for what is good. We become Love when we love. We become Christ for others when we allow our devotion to the Way to shape our vision, our relationship to our circumstances and the people in our lives. “These are my people,” I say to myself in the company of family, friends, townspeople, peers. But God also says to me: “These are MY people. I have put them in your life. Learn from them!” Sometimes, I have the feeling I want to bow at the feet of every person I know. They are royal. God is in them—for me! They are, these particular people, the ones I have been given to discover, not other people, these. No need to think to myself, “others may be better friends, more intellectual and artistic, more suited to me,” with the adolescent longing for anything other than what I have—other husband, other children, other neighbors, other colleagues—to flee the duties that are mine. God has been and is embedded here. My friends are faithful. They are God’s ambassadors! I need to honor them by being Christ for and with them, by being Love in the world. Karen Jessee . . . . vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
—Ecclesiastes 1:2 The perilous habit of aggrandizing self-gaze. The threat of believing we, on our own, can fill the earth with splendor, that we possess redemptive beauty. Indeed, we may. One could say we all possess such beauty. Everyone on earth, by their very nature—simply by be-ing here, in the body—helps to sanctify the world. Not that we can’t ruin things, instead. We can. We can make ourselves and everything around us ugly by acting out of misguided confidence. This idea is central to the scriptures, person after person exhibiting an inflated sense of their own importance starting right at the beginning with Adam and Eve. Even if our fore-parents had abided by every rule in the Garden, they would still have found themselves estranged from the source of all beauty. Their initiative to act independently (as all children finally must) might stir a sort of admiration in us. Yet, the offer from the Deceiver was to become like God. In other words, to become something other than what they were. Their motivation was a perversion of their innate goodness, a failure to recognize they were acceptable--enough, worthy—just as they were. Striving to be more, to know more, wasn’t necessary, and doing so involved a level of self-regard which has tempted every human being since. We just can’t help thinking the world is ours to grab. We think we can do anything we set our sights on just because we decide to. As if we could control outcomes. As if we could charm life into making us smarter, more desirable, more acceptable, wiser, richer, sexier. We may actually be all these things. But did we make it so? Or, do we even think we made it so? Human beings are incorrigible, it turns out. We strive to make ourselves MORE, think we ARE MORE, or desperately WANT MORE, all the while being oblivious to our intrinsic beauty which holds the power to redeem the world. Our beauty has been with us all along; it has never not been there. But we lost sight of it along the way. Jesus came to revive our awareness, to re-expose the truth of our beauty. His life with us imbued our lives once more with the divine excellence of our physical nature, our intrinsic selves, and our capacity to be in true relationship with others. We who live by faith need not grasp after what we are not but may humbly live into who we are in the image of God. Jesus’ message involved reminder after reminder that we are not as important as we sometimes make ourselves out to be. He told the story of the Pharisee and the Publican to make his point. When we draw attention to ourselves—boasting as the Pharisee to all who could see, “I pray twice a day and pay tithes on all I earn!”—we shallow ourselves, becoming no more than a shell made of what others can see. But if, like the humble Publican who withdrew discreetly to pray—“God, have mercy on me, a sinner”—we humbly focus not on ourselves but on God and God’s goodness alone, we may become something akin to ourselves, fleshy and authentic and inherently noble. These thousands of years later, those of us who think of the poor Publican are still awed by the excellence of his personhood, the way he dug deep into his depths, revealing them without focusing on them, without broadcasting himself. We feel we can truly know him. Which is the truth about vanity: staring into the hypnotic mirror of self-proclamatory regard denies others of our richness, our beauty the way God assesses it. Selfishness is always harmful, neither gaining for ourselves what we truly want--satisfaction--nor offering others what they really need--recognition. If clinging, striving, selfishness guides our actions, no one can live life well. The author of Ecclesiastes suggests it makes every one of our gestures empty. It doesn’t have to be this way. We can strive to look our best, be our best, and then forget about it. We can focus our time—beyond our time in front of the mirror—on recognizing others, reflecting their beauty. We can become mirrors of divine truth. Looking our best is an easy gift we give to the world. If we play it right, we may occasionally catch a glimpse of ourselves and see another bearer of humanity’s mantle of divine excellence. We may know, without over-looking, how beautiful we are and understand the part only we can play in the world’s redemption. Iris Reid We live in the present, we dream of the future, but we learn eternal truths from the past.
---Maylin Soong Chiang Interesting, this idea eternal truths emerge from the past. They're eternal! Present as much in the future as in the past, and in the present when we could be awake to them if only we would try to be. Eternity, we think, is a far-off place, the Emerald City awaiting us at the end of a long road, or back home in Kansas where we really are loved, even if we didn't realize it or it didn't feel that way. But, the eternal lives close to us, as a pulse within our pulse, a breath within our breath. It's never not there, but always IS, just like it says. We can learn from eternity, sure, but we need to recognize it when we see it. Jesus said, "the Kingdom of God is at hand," meaning now, within our grasp--both a where and a when we can participate in. The Realm of God--infinite and eternal--is present every moment, a sort of parallel universe within and throughout ours which we can step into and help bring to light. If we believe in scripture, or simply the power of love to fuel positive change in the world, we recognize the Kingdom can only come to light if we choose to find it, seek it, sense it, and then share it. For, what good is a pulse if our life isn't shared? What good is our breath if we don't use it to speak loving words? The Realm of God sings resonant with the voices of mothers and fathers, activists for justice, teachers, prophets, librarians, mechanics, gardeners, garbage workers, nurses, and all children--everyone who seeks to calm, to heal, to set things right for themselves and the world around them. There's an alternative to our limited, sleepy vision, an antidote to dreariness, doubt, and despair. Eternity is here and now, embedded in our lives--present, past, and future--wherever we find ourselves, awake and willing to step into awareness. Iris Reid |
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