Judge Others with Grace

 

The clouds on this particular morning remind me of those images I so loved as a child, those

Images where you somehow can see two totally separate things as you stare at the page. Is it a chalice or a pair of profiles facing one another? Is it an old man’s face or a dog? You remember those? I am still fascinated by such images.

Today I couldn’t decide if the sky looked like an aerial view of the ocean along some white sand beach, or a great tsunami wave about to wipe out my little neighborhood. Then again it looked like a towering, snow covered mountain, silhouetted against the bright blue sky.

Things aren’t always what they appear and sometimes looks can be deceiving. A situation that appears wonderful can prove to be disastrous. A situation that seems awful in one moment can be a blessing down the road. A person, rough and hard in appearance, can prove to be a kind, compassionate soul. A person who seems to care can turn on us and seek to destroy us. Situations, and people, are constantly coming and going in and out of our lives, complicated all.

Steven Covey writes, “We judge ourselves by our intentions. And others by their actions.” It is easy to give ourselves a pass while holding a harsh, hard line on others, and to give those people we like grace for the same actions by which we condemn others.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Christian martyr, wrote, “Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.”

Most folk are not one dimensional, there are many facets to our lives, many factors that go into making us who we are and coloring how we see our world. Perhaps we should look more closely at one another, perhaps we would find that our first impression wasn’t the last impression, or the only impression. Maybe we would see in another both the bright blue ocean and the snow covered mountain. Maybe, just maybe, we could find ourselves walking along that white sand beach as friends.

Peace.