Judging Others

"We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behavior." 
               ~~Stephen M. R. Covey, from his book, The Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes                       Everything.

As Thomas Paine, American patriot, once said, "These are the times that try men's souls."
There are things going on in our country right now--not all political, but mostly--that are trying my soul.  Americans--Christian Americans--are judging other Americans, Christian or not, and it isn't pretty.  Name-calling, violence, public shaming, boycotts.  Sometimes I think we have lost our collective mind.  The hypocrisy is brutal.

I hate hypocrisy.  People who live in glass houses are throwing stones at others.  Some of us don't tend to the "log" in our own eyes before seeing the "splinter" in others'.  Every single day, I read things or hear things that remind me that we are NOT the land of the free and the home of the brave.  We are NOT a Christian nation.  We are a selfish lot of flawed human beings, pretending to hold up a standard for others to follow, but your standard isn't worthy if it doesn't match up with my standard.  And we will stubbornly fly that flag as long as our own ox isn't gored.  I could give example after example of this, but it would then become a book.  Ain't nobody got time for that!

So here I am, sitting in my little house-on-a-slab, making my lesson plan for my adult Sunday School class that I will teach again this week, and reading outrageous comments made by our president on a daily basis.  And the news.  Oh God...the news.  My blood pressure seriously goes up.  I have to avoid the news.  I mean, I can actually feel the anxiety rise in my being when I read the stories of the events of the day or the trends of society--especially when I understand that I am now a Senior Citizen who is a throwaway in American life.  I'm old.  Who cares about old people?  I am always especially offended by the hypocrisy of people who pretend to care.

See if you can follow the chronology of what is to follow.  (It's how my mind works.  I can't help it!)  A couple of weeks ago, I lost a dear friend to an unexpected death.  He was the sole caretaker of his seriously demented wife of 47 years, even though they have two adult children and an adult grandchild.  Only one of those children (the daughter) and her adult daughter (the grandchild) lives nearby.  The daughter thought that her father should just put her mother in a nursing home and be done with it.  He couldn't afford it, and probably wouldn't have done it if he could.  Thus, the daughter and grandchild just never came around.  He could barely get around due to knee joints that no longer existed, but he put off surgery because he would have no one to take care of his wife while he recovered.  His daughter might have offered to help do housework or do grocery shopping for him in order to help lighten his load, but she wasn't about that.  Eventually, he decided that he no longer had a choice but to make arrangements for his wife and to have knee replacement surgery.  He did.  And then he died.

I had such anger in my heart about his selfish daughter.  (Still do.)  The back story about her and her child, which I will spare you, is complicated.  My friend did so much for them both, and when he needed them, he got no help.  In my grief, I was complaining about this online to my own daughter, and she wrote me one line:  "Hard to judge others."  Well!  That shut off the conversation, didn't it??!  No sympathy in that line.  Not for me...not for my friend...but it set my mind to thinking about my feelings.  What possible excuse could there be for my friend's snippy daughter to ignore his needs?  I don't know.  What I do know is that a light bulb came on over my head--an epiphany, of sorts.  A whole lifetime of judging others settled right down on my shoulders, and the weight didn't feel good.

So, who is the hypocrite now?
I have always prided myself on being able to accept others for who/what they are, but I'm thinking now that it was part of my own special internal perception of the way things should be.  I have long had a problem with denying the elephant in the living room.  If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck...right?  I can forgive behavior if forgiveness is requested, but what about when it isn't?  If I accept unacceptable behavior from others, does that make it okay?  Will I become a doormat for people to run over and stomp on?  Will others close to me?  Are they seeing the forest for the trees?  Or must I provide the standard on which the flag of truth flies?  And just what makes me think that I must be the standard-bearer of truth and honesty?

I am humbler now.  I will try harder not to be the embodiment of what I detest in others.  I sure do need help!