Recently I have been thinking about the evaluations we make about situations, problems . . . and people’s actions, and by extension, people themselves. Some things seem so obvious; some things seem just plumb wrong, and they may very well be. I am so quick to equate the action with the whole person; it’s my temperament, the way my genes put my neurons together, just me. I know some of those brain linkages “ain’t quite right” but it comes out.

This morning, just a few minutes ago, I was searching for a piece of information I had tucked away on a stickie on the desktop. I have lots of stickies on my desktop and have collapsed a lot of them for reasons of space, leaving just a sentence to give me the general idea of what is within. Well, every now and then I will plop a quote on a stickie; I found one today, tacked on the bottom of a reminder of a password. I guess the day I came upon the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, I was in a hurry and just added it to a stickie that was already open and had a lot of blank space.

Here it is:

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.”
? Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

Still, being me, I have to stand by my belief that there are some things that are done that are not right. But then there is the matter of the people who do the doing . . .

The subtle underplay here for me is that I have so much ease in admitting my faults – but pointing out that they are wired into me, and yet link so closely others’ faults with their chosen intent. Of course, I never think of it being wired into them. Maybe other people end the day by thinking, “Oh, crap, I was just plain mean today. Why am I like that?”

However, I have a real penchant for saying someone who is nice has a personality that comes naturally to them, as if that excuses my, uh, less than meritorious words and actions. I can’t help it, dontcha know. (See first paragraph.)

Well, my head is not hurting, but sort of vibrating and I think I will slowly back off thinking about the philosophy of  this. Ah, I found myself with my glasses pushed up on my forehead by hands and fingers pressed against my eyes as I sigh at life. I had to take one down so I could take it over to the side of the page where “publish” is in blue . . .