Who are We to Judge?
We are the only animal that has the capability to think with compassion, and forgiveness, and love. We are the the answer for so many who need help and guidance. Who can we be?
We can be helpful, humane,compassionate insightful,willful, and so many other things.
I heard an antidote the other day, it was about two rats each placed in a vat of water in two different rooms and one had the light on, the other was left in the dark. I knew that both rats were going to die as it was started off with how long do you think they would survive if both were in water with no way out. Of course the one rat with the room lit was going to go on longer for he had that light to keep him motivated to keep him thinking that something would change or that maybe he could overcome his situation. I thought this to be perfect for how I can relate that from which my sharing to you, what is transpiring in my world, and why I say to you, Who can we be?
I saw a few of my neighbors tipping their hats to the traffic yesterday and then again this morning, right in front of their home right in the middle of one of the busiest streets that flow into our neighborhood. I have seen them quite often in the last couple of years,, pan handling on the freeway, at the grocers, and in the medians on big thoroughfares. It seems that this family moved back into the home from which they had been gone from for a very long time. I see them pan handle with what I believe to be either friends or siblings as they always come from the same home walking to and from their now very familiar corners. I have heard all of the complaints and all of the banter on what my neighbors would like to do to have them removed. I wonder who we are to judge and to complain so much about what others do or do not do?
I passed the gentlemen up this morning as I drove my child to a U I L competition at our neighbor hood High school. My son said some thing to me to the effect of, how really bad they must be struggling to be left to the desperate option of having to panhandle for their survival. I said how do you know that it is not just them trying to have an easy way to meet their obligations. My son said, mom if you live in the United States, and you are having as hard a time as we very well are, then you know that you can at the very least try anything that you can think of to survive a rough and hard journey we are only human after all. The basics are truly the core of our lives, water, shelter, and food I wonder why more people do not try to help them, as opposed to getting them thrown out of the neighbor hood. He said that in this great country people from around the world come to try as hard as humanly possible to achieve their goals , so then who are we to judge any persons’ ways or the means by which they can get to their goal, excluding illegal activity of course, (did I mention to you that my son is twelve?). I asked if he was OK with what the men were doing, and what he thought of how they were going about their business.
He said, that he has seen us all at home try to make ends meet, and most of the time they don’t. I thought about how much our children have seen, and heard, and understand of our own situation and struggle, as I dropped him off. He is right there are many people trying to work two, or three jobs for what ever reason, their motivation, and even their unconventional ways to get there are not for us to judge. I see the reality TV show commercials that are about teens with children struggling, young men and women trying to stay in the lime light of the night life with sex and drama, the woman who is conceiving child after child to what seems to be no end, the New Jersey, Orange County and the like cat fights. I can not be offended to the fact that this is how they choose to live their life and survive. It is not what I would or could do, but on that same note as their dramas unfold on our televisions and we laugh and sneer, and gossip about what sluts, or users, or just plain idiots these people are I am sure that as they live their lives that they laugh all the way to the bank. So who are we to judge?
Who are we to judge? My neighbors more of them than I care to mention thrive on the shows I mentioned, and as they were not blinded enough to what is entertainment, they in the same breath have the nerve to complain about the men in our neighborhood who have now been jeered at, sneered at, and cursed at by fine (”church going”) neighbors. I would rather not see a man woman or child beg, or panhandle for food, or money anywhere, but in this day and time I see it often and more so than not, with the economic struggles that is taring away at us, stripping that ray of light from many, putting your dreams in the dark, and leaving most of us to deal with our living as if balancing on a high wire, or even trying to keep from drowning in a vat of water to either give up or to drown. I see that one must do what you can to survive, and then they must endure what they must. Yes who are we to judge what any other person does and how they do it to survive (as my son said, excluding illegal activities)? My families battle and struggle with our economic state is seemingly bleak at the moment and times are and have been really tough, I am thinking of getting a hat from the closet.
Food For The Mind
Lilly’s Way
December 13th, 2011 at 1:05 am
If you’re still on the fence: grab your favorite earphones, head down to a Best Buy and ask to plug them into a Zune then an iPod and see which one sounds better to you, and which interface makes you smile more. Then you’ll know which is right for you.