Judge Not Lest

On the front page of the CNN Web Site this weekend was an article about Mitochondrial disease. A family with a young boy was shown in a picture and the article explained how the young boy was not expected to live much beyond on his tenth birthday. Genetic defects leading to mitochondrial diseases we learned are on the rise.

In each of these articles there always appears a small disclaimer that says something like the following, " Most of these occur in small children but there is an increasing amount of adult onset variations as well." This is what happened to me.

The point I want to make here is that each and everyone of us makes judgements on people and situations everyday. Some of us have a gift for making good judgements about people. I used to have a friend who would get mad at me because I would sometimes judge a person we had just met to not be what he claimed to be, not as " all that" as my friend might think he is. Looking back on it the fact that I was right on most of these occasions is no solace to my later in life observation is that if you call heads every time on a coin toss you will be right about half the time.

In short making assumptions can be dangerous and lead to results which are preordained. A quotation we have all heard is not to judge someone until you have walked a few miles in their shoes.

We are blessed to have a small circle of good friends. My wife is a social butterfly and has a network of good friends that is large. I tend to have a smaller group of people that I really count on, trust, and enjoy. We also have, fortunately for us, some good friends that we have made in our local community over the last few years. Interestingly many of ones friends made in adulthood come through their children. This makes sense, as we are all going through a common experience. In any case I have never felt a doubt about my illness, never felt anything but sincere caring and small questions about how I am feeling. Most of the men know that if I am out, meaning able to get out that day, that I do not want to talk about my health, I just want to talk about what we are doing, the game we are at. The women, more nurturing I suppose, ask, and if I am not at an event always ask after me. We men are different. I accept and am thankful for all of them.

Still I know that there are those that see me at events, dropping the kids off, who wonder what the deal is. After all except for the cane I use nothing on first glance looks that wrong with me. I do not have a missing arm or a third eye. I speak clearly. What is wrong with that guy? Now I have a good friend who told me you cannot worry about what the unknown person thinks and of course he is right.

The lesson I think is that we all need to give more people the benefit of the doubt. Those who know me, know my ethics, know my feelings on personal responsibility know that being sick is a blow to the ego and sense of self worth that I will never be completely over. They would never doubt me and the reality of my situation. However these people who have faith in me might have doubts about the next person they see that is " disabled."

I will admit surely that I have had the same thoughts about others long before I got sick. I think that there is something in our human nature to doubt others. I also think however that it might be more prevalent in our society than it is in others, even other Western cultures.

Certainly I am not smart enough to know why but my question is does it have to do with the extreme capitalism we practice in this country. After all in Europe, with their social safety net, their family leave benefits, their extended yearly vacations, and of course their higher taxes, it seems likely that there would be generated a more " we are all in this together" feeling and thus perhaps less time would be spent making judgements on the authenticity of other people. Or that theory could be all liberal hocus pocus.

I play fantasy baseball in a couple of leagues. Sometimes I have a hard time with my hands and my daughter might have to help me make entries. I got an application for my phone that is much easier to use and that has helped. Being a big baseball fan is who I am. A couple of weeks ago a competitor, a person I do not know as this is a public league accused me of cheating. He saw the success I was having in this league and the other and said no first year player could be that successful. I have to tell you I was angry to have someone even think that. This person did not know me, he did not know that I had watched and worshiped baseball for forty years, he did not know that I had played with friends in other leagues for a decade. Simply put he did not know anything about me. Should I care what he thought Of course not. But I did. Nobody wants anybody to think bad of them. I think the greatest anger or sense of powerlessness we can feel is when someone thinks that is wrong about us. Worse yet is if that opinion is not based on fact. If someone thinks something based on hearsay, or assumption then you cannot correct it with fact.

Someone who sees me limping along cashing my disability check even when confronted with the facts of my genetic condition would have some flip answer that would make clear that they still think it's not something that is truly disabling. The person who accused me of cheating at fantasy baseball of all things can be told of my experience and expertise but they still will think I am cheating.

The woman who is buying a birthday cake at the Shop and Save for a small child's birthday with food stamps might not have an oven that works. She might not have the skill set to make a pretty cake. There might be a design that her daughter saw one day in the bakery that she really wanted. Still if we see that we will go home and sputter about it, we will tell our friends about " welfare abuse" , we will update our Facebook status about that awkward moment when a welfare recipient is eating better than you a hard working citizen does. And yet when our child was young we would pay our light bill two weeks late perhaps to have money to buy our children something they wanted for Christmas. We do not know this woman at the store. We do not know why she is on food stamps. We do not know anything about her situation.

My Bible is pretty clear. What you do the least of us you do to me said Jesus. This is a pretty clear parable. It is hard to miss the point. Love your neighbor. Judge not. Let he who is without sin throw the first stone.

We all know these rules. Still we do not know this woman in the supermarket, people who doubt me are not at my home when I cannot lift my head, or wash my hair because I cannot lift my arms. They are not at our home when I have a dropsy attack and need to be helped to a chair or couch to sleep in a matter or seconds. They are not with me when I take a combination of Riboflavin, pain pills and Imodium to allow me to go to one of my children's events without any significant problems.

And I would never cheat at fantasy baseball.

Judge not lest you be judged