Judge Not

I had a wonderful opportunity a couple of weeks ago to be able to work in the LDS Bishops' Storehouse in SLC for a few hours a day, for several days. The storehouses were built to help fulfill one of the missions of the Church, which is to help the poor and feed the hungry. First thing in the morning, there will be a line of people outside their door wanting to work for food. They take as many as they can and find work for them in the storehouse, in exchange for some groceries. Those who work the morning shift, also get lunch. People from all walks of life come there, many whom I would be afraid to approach on the street. It was wonderful to be in that safe environment, where I was given the opportunity to take people around the store to pick out the groceries on their order form, that had been decided on with the help of their bishop, or the bishop at the storehouse, if they are transients without a permanent address. The experience helped remind me that people are just people, and we are all carrying around our own set of baggage. In mentioning the experience to a friend a few days later, she said it would be so helpful if everyone of us had to wear a badge that said something like: "I'm broken. I am an alcoholic," "I'm broken. My child is prison for dealing drugs," or listing the myriad other weaknesses that we all have. It seemed like something like that would help us all to realize that we are all in need of compassion, and to realize that none of us is any better than any of the rest of us. I think if we could see into each others' hearts, we would approach people more in an effort to help where we might, than to judge them for the issues we perceive that they have.

I'm sure the badge idea will never come into vogue, though, because most of us are so self-conscious about our weaknesses, that we'd probably never go out of the house if we knew that everyone got to know everything about us. It's probably all part of the long-term plan that we can't know that now, but we have been told that all will be revealed in the next life. As we judge, so shall we be judged. It seems like we would do well to just learn to love and accept everyone as they are and leave the judging to God. Which isn't to say that we shouldn't be careful, if care is needed, but maybe by learning to be closer to the Spirit we will know when to be careful and when to be helpful.

In her book Consider the Butterfly, Carol Lynn Pearson talks about a day that she had been called to jury duty. After showing up and going through the questioning, she ended up not being chosen to serve that time. As she left the courthouse and headed to her car, she was thinking about the idea of being released from jury duty, and she realized that when Jesus told us to "judge not," he was essentially saying that we, too, have been released from jury duty. We can work on ourselves and leave the judgment of others to God. What a pleasant thought!