Discerning Judgment

Simply Beautiful - photo by Lisa Munkeby - follow her on Instagram “lmunkeby”

I have grown aware of the cost of judgment in my own life.  It separates me from others.  My mind creates it and then it closes my heart, tight like a drum.  When this happens, nothing can get in.  Even those beautiful unrelated thoughts of the evening breeze and the hummingbird at my feeder can not fully enter my heart.  Try it.  Think a judging thought of another, hold it in your body and then try to let a loving thought in.   It sucks.  Can’t do it.

We can not fight judgment with judgment.

A passage in the Bible says “Let the person who is without sin throw the first stone”  I’m not a fan of the word “sin,” but another way to view it is ... let the person who is free of harmful actions in their past be free to judge another.  Yep, that excludes us all!   It also suggests a parallel between judging and actually throwing a stone at someone. Ouch!

We all judge others.  It is impossible not to.  It is our brain’s primitive way of making sense of the world.  It is a tool we have wielded to protect ourselves.  Yet it hurts ourselves and quite often hurts another. I am keenly aware when another is judging me. When I teach I know which students are separate from me, in judgment of me, due to a simple assumption they have made. The trouble is, they are wrong about me, but because the judgment holds them separate they are unable to gather new information to contradict their initial assumption. How many people have we separated ourselves from in this way?

There are initial steps before we reach judgment.  This is where we have a possibility of another choice.  

1st - Observing
2nd - Discernment
3rd - Judgment

First, there is moment when I notice something about the other person.  At this point, if I stop, it is only “observing.”  Then, secondly, there is a moment where I might evaluate if what I have noticed creates a need to change my behavior.  For example, I notice this car swerving and I choose to change lanes.  At this point it is only “discernment.”

Still I have not judged.  

After that moment, it is easy for the past memories of similar experiences that rolled into judgement to take over (I.e. patterns).  That slippery judgment slides right in with an “edge.”   Sometimes it is subtle and goes no further, a simple “othering” of the other.  Saying under my breath “those people (with an eye roll)”   Other times the fires of righteousness fan it into a harsh judgment and that brick wall is reinforced between us.  Now my heart is closed tight.   

There is nothing useful about judgment.  I can keep my distance if needed without it.  

In fact today what I notice is how we are judging the people who judge others.  So ironic.  We judge the conservative right for judging and excluding people.  Yet, we’d be just as happy to exclude them from our party.    

Let’s be clear, I am not speaking for in-action.  We can observe, we can discern, we can form our own ideals and values, and we can take action in support of our ideals and even in opposition to the other ideals... and I truly believe we can do this all without closing our hearts, without judgment. Have you noticed that young children can’t judge? It’s impossible for their brain to work that way…

What would shift in the world now if within ourselves we proceeded forward without the wall of judgment...?

(curious - it seems it is okay to spell judgment as “judgment” and as “judgement” … I guess even the word is getting more “flexible” … ha ha)