I live on a busy street.
You can see the world from my front porch. It walks by, drives by and shuffles
by like a marvelous circus parade. It is some of the cheapest entertainment
available.
Some passers-by are
regulars. Some pass by only once. There is the middle-aged woman with a
distended belly who walks like she has had one shock treatment too many. There
is the scruffy drunk carrying a beat-up, old guitar who likes to aggravate cars
with a few in-your-face chords from an old Elvis tune. There is the screaming
married couple, with windows rolled down, who decide to have it out with each
other while waiting for the traffic light to change. There is the elderly couple,
shuffling hand in hand, savoring every squirrel, baby and flower they pass.
There are the U of L
athletes, tanned, lean and rippled with muscle, strutting their stuff, proud as
peacocks. There is the African-American nurse’s aide from the local hospital
with grocery bags in each hand, waiting in the rain for a bus to take her to
another day’s work at home. Too tired to stand, she sits on a wet set of steps.
There is the overweight, well-intentioned, if not short-lived, jogger who huffs
and puffs his way to that leaner and trimmer waistline in his mind’s eye.
What do you see when you
see people like these? Do you judge them or bless them? I am embarrassed to
admit that I found myself judging some of these people one day as I sat and
watched them go by. I was reminded of a line from the movie “On Golden Pond.”
Katherine Hepburn says to Jane Fonda when she was terribly frustrated with her
aggravating, old father, “If you look closely enough, you will realize that he
is doing the best he can.” Remembering that line, I decided to bless those who
walked by my house and pray for them. Who knows how lonely, scared, abused or
stressed they are? “There, but for the grace of God, go I.”
Prayer has the power to
help those who don’t even know you are praying for them. Why break the “bruised
reed?” Why quench the “smoldering candle?” Jesus says, “Do not judge and you
will not be judged.” St. Paul says, “The member who hurts the most needs the
most attention.”
Judging others, especially those we do not know, is a bad habit that says as much about us as the people we judge. This bad habit can be replaced with the good habit of blessing others. All we have to do is monitor our own thinking, check it and replace it with new thinking. A new world is often only a changed thought away.
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