Don't judge

Until I was eight or nine, the only thing I remember ever listening to on the radio was classical music or church songs, mostly the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. I was completely ignorant of the world of music outside of this narrow selection, and that ignorance made me judgmental. On one occasion that I remember particularly well, my parents were gone and had left us with my older cousin Serena, who is such an amazing person, by the way. Anyway, we were in the old ten-seater blue van and she did the unthinkable - she changed the radio station. I was appalled. To think, my own cousin would leave the safety and security of Handel and hymns to fling herself off the cliff of some devilish "pop" music! To make matters worse, she started moving to the groove with a complicated combination of claps, snaps, knee taps and lap pats. I looked around me to see the reaction of my siblings, only to find that they were moving to the groove, too!! So there I was, confronted with a real-life moral dilemma. I'd always read about these kinds of things in the Friend magazine - you know, when some kid does the right thing in spite of the fact that everyone around him is not - but I had always thought these were things that happened to someone else. The problem with that is, everyone is someone else to someone else (paraphrasing Calvin and Hobbes). So there I was in this predicament, and I was determined to stand up for what is right. I would not groove to that infernal beat, and nothing my cousin did could make me. Noticing my lack of enthusiasm, my cousin directed her attention at me and asked, "Can you do this?" and followed with another barrage of hand movements that for one were immoral (she was relishing in this sinful pop music in a sick and twisted ritualistic way, and trying to get me to join in) and for two, those movements were way too rhythmically complex for my seven-year-old self (I mean, come on, even now in my twenties I still can hardly manage the first ten seconds of Hannah Montana's simple "boom-boom-clap" routine. Sure, I can pop it, lock it, and polka dot it just fine, but between the hawk in the sky and the shuffling diagonal zig-zags, I can see real quick that it ain't my kinda hoedown-throwdown).

At this point, you're likely wondering where I'm going with all this. To a whole lot of nowhere, that's where.

The end












Yes, I have a "point," if you must know. Not everything has to have a point though, does it? And you better not judge me just because you think my blog post is pointless, because it's not! Even if it was, that doesn't mean you get to judge me for it. I'm sick of all these people who think they're sooo wonderful and they just hate on whatever they feel like to make themselves feel better. On the inside they're a bunch of scumbags, though, and I don't care what they do, so if you're one of those people, you can think whatever you want, but I'm not gonna let what other people think about me change what I do.

This post is about judging people. I mean, about not judging people (emphasis on "not", in case you missed that). The world seems to have a huge problem with judging people, I don't know what's wrong with everyone, but they need to quit judging. I mean, come ON people! Everybody's different, everybody's got different problems, and you judging someone won't eliminate their problems or your problems, so can't we all just cut it out? No, we can't, I know. It's impossible, yet the commandment stands, straight from the Savior's mouth: "Judge not" (Matthew 7:1). But we can't seem to get it.

So, I told you about when I was a little kid I thought my cousin was Satan for changing the radio station to something with a beat, and you might think I'd have grown out of that judging people stage by now. Well, I haven't. I listen to different music now, but if somebody has music I deem "bad," I judge them. If I were to put it into words, it'd sound something like, "I can't believe they're listening to that song! Sure, it's catchy, but it has swear words and all it talks about is sex. How can someone claim to be a member of the church and listen to that?!" ...Dang...turns out verbalizing my judging others doesn't make me sound like a very nice person. I'm not that bad, really I'm not! Like, the other day, my wife and I went to classic skating, BYU was having this spring-fling thing and it was only a dollar, so we go, and it said on the flier "dress-code WILL be enforced", then we get there and we're skating around and we see the rink spattered with booty shorts and the occasional splash of sleevelessness, and we totally didn't judge them! We didn't judge them for dressing immodestly, breaking the honor code or for trying to get attention for their bodies, and we didn't judge the BYU students who hosted the event either for just letting them get away with it. No sirree, we did nothing of the sort. We minded our own business, gave the benefit of the doubt and refrained from condemning anyone for their actions, no matter how much we disapproved...We totally judged them. We're working on it, alright?

Back to this whole judging thing, we shouldn't do it, but it's so hard because there are some people that I flat out don't like! There are some of them who must've been born to irritate, who came into this world with an innate power to drive everyone crazy. Then there's the jerks, the despicables, and your old run-of-the-mill disagreeables. What are we supposed to do with all them? Just let them annoy us, be rude and insufferable all the time?

On a little more serious note, I think it would help if we could see them in a different way, see them as God does. In Isaiah 55:8-9, God himself tells us: "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways...For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." Obviously, we don't see or think about things the same way He does. We judge others according to our knowledge and our capacity to "see" them, and so does God - He judges us according to His knowledge and His ability to see. The main difference is, He's on an infinitely higher plane of knowing and seeing than we are, so when He judges, His judgement is just. Ours, on the other hand, is less commonly so. We need to get on God's level. He loves us because we're His children. Our differences are what make life rich, and judging others is never justified.

I've actually been looking into this whole judging thing for quite some time, and when I find a scripture I like that relates to it, I add it to my "no juzgar" ("no judging") list. I decided to include the list below in case you wanted to have a look at some great words of wisdom. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my post, I was kind of all over the place this time. If you agree/disagree, comment below - I'd love to hear what you think. (If you don't comment, don't worry - I won't judge you). ;)



No juzgar

Samuel 16:7
Matthew 7:1-5
Matthew 9:10-13
Luke 6:31
John 8:15-16
John 8:7
Acts 10:34-35
James 4:11-12
2 Nephi 21:3-4
2 Nephi 26:25-28, 33
2 Nephi 27:31-32
Jacob 2:13-14
Jacob 2:17, 21
Jacob 3:9
Mosiah 4:17-19; 22
Alma 5:30-31
Alma 41:14
D&C 64:11

Comments

  1. I really got a kick out of this especially since I know Serena once asked to turn the radio station to a different song in a van full of teens she didn't know because she didn't think it was appropriate. I honestly cannot remember the song but I do remember thinking there wasn't anything wrong with the song playing. I'm now wondering if she was thinking the same thing about them you did of her. :)Thanks for the randomness and reminiscing. It has reminded me of a blog post by a fourth cousin of mine, Bradly McBride..."someone inevitably comes out with “Stop being so judgmental”. The irony of that statement never ceases to amaze me. Isn’t it obvious that the second that accusation leaves my lips, I am doing the same thing I am condemning?" http://middleagedmormonman.com/home/2012/04/uchtdorfs-hammer/ I hope you enjoy it.

    Aunt Shawntell

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, I am the "real" Serena talked about in the post above. First, I apologize for my choice in music if it was not appropriate. Second, I think it's neat that this post is about judging. We all do it. And third, I'm glad that your siblings had a few moments of pop bliss 😉.

      Delete
    2. Shawntell, thanks for the fun sharing experience and the other post, love it. Serena, just so you know I have no idea what song It was, wasn't even hearing the words. Just because It had a beat I was horrified haha I think that's called being sheltered. I hope you don't mind me using this story, I shoud've asked you beforehand.

      Delete
    3. No worries. You had a unique childhood as did I. I'm glad you're sorting things out. 😄

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mornings

This is not marital advice