Reflection On Judging Others

 "Do not judge others and you will not be judged. For as you judge others, so you yourselves will be judged . . ."    (Matthew 7:1)

"Many of us have learned patterns of speaking that backfire. One of these is judging other people. Often, we do this to feel better about ourselves, and possibly to meet our own needs for acceptance and belonging, yet just the opposite happens. Whenever we judge anyone else in anyway, we create a barrier and distance between us and the other person. This occurs every time we judge another person as lazy, stupid, a bad dresser, egotistical, or uncaring. Every moralistic judgement separates us from other people and limits our ability to meet the very needs we set out to meet, such as feeling better about ourselves, acceptance and belonging.

"Instead of judging, then, notice how you feel about someone's actions, or how you feel when you see something. If you are skiing and someone cuts in front of you, rather than thinking [he or] she is a jerk or a maniac, consider that you are scared and you'd like the slopes to be safer.  This slight shift from judging other people to awareness of how their behaviour affects you can make a profound difference in your ability to live peacefully."

                                                 From 'Peacful Living' by Mary Mackenzie

The above seems particularly relevant with Holocaust Memorial Day being marked on Thursday of this coming week.

How much distrust and enmity between races and religions stems from people judging others?  We hear of people feeling afraid of young people when they gather in groups on street corners, yet sometimes these youngsters just want somewhere to meet and are merely chatting.  There seem to be more tall young men around, so shorter people may well feel intimidated by them, but that doesn't mean they are violent.

It only takes a few steps from turning our feelings of fear into an assertion that a particular group are violent and then that all people like that are violent, whether young men, or young men from a particular racial group. From there a general distrust of all people from that ethnic background may lead to us seeing them all with suspicion, perhaps even deciding to strike them before they strike us.

Sometimes religion can encourage people to judge others, such as when people from one religion believe that God is displeased with everyone who does not accept the teachings of their religion.  This might just make the adherents of this religion annoying as they try to point out to everyone 'the error of their ways', but it can cause one group of people to see another group of people as enemies of God whose lives have less value than their own. The attitude of the Crusaders towards the Muslims is an example of this, which has had dire repercussions for nearly a thousand years.

In Germany between the wars many people were keen to be judgemental and prejudiced where the Jews were concerned, partly due to religious teaching and partly due to resentment and jealousy towards wealthy Jews whose businesses continued to thrive while many Germans struggled to make ends meet during the Depression of the 1930's.  This attitude meant that some people felt the Jews were better out of the way, so they didn't ask too many questions when their Jewish neighbours disappeared.

Unfortunately the idea that life would be better without other people around, so much so that people are prepared to kill people from another ethnic group continues today, with the wars in Rwanda and what was once Yugoslavia, not to mention what is still happening in Israel-Palestine, as prime examples.

'When will they ever learn?'  'Wann wird man je verstehen?' as the song, 'Where Have all the Flowers Gone?' says.

Whether it is due to our own inclination or religious teaching it is always better to avoid the temptation to judge others if we want fulfilled, enriched lives and a peaceful world.

Reflections on Non-Violent Communication

Another book I've been reading recently is 'Non-violent Communication' by Marshall B Rosenberg.  Reading it was a 'light-bulb moment'.  Once you understand what he's saying, it's obvious, but it can take a while to understand the concept because it is so alien from the way most of us have been brought up to think.

The basic message is that we all have needs and these needs are perfectly valid.

However, for society to work well we need to balance our needs with the needs of others.  When our needs aren't met we often have a negative reaction.  This can take the form of frustration, disappointment, discouragement, fear, anger or depression etc.  Negative emotions don't help us to get on so well with other people as a rule.  Our negative emotions are a result of not getting our needs met, and they are often not met because we have not communicated them properly.

The book shows us how to communicate our needs effectively as well as how to hear the needs of others.  For instance, a woman who is lonely and fed up because her husband works late, or goes to the pub after dinner, might say, "You don't love me", or even, "I wish you didn't spend so much time doing x or y".  The first statement might make her husband feel defensive and cause an argument, the second might result in him doing something else, but not spending more time with her.  So she would do better to tell him she is feeling lonely and unhappy because she doesn't see him as much as she would like and it would really please her if he could spend more time with her.

The husband might then respond that his needs are being met by doing what he is doing, but for a healthier relationship husband and wife could then sit down and discuss whether they would both be happy with some kind of compromise, such as she would expect a less extravagant lifestyle in return for seeing more of her husband, or out of love for his wife he would buy less of the latest gadgets so that he wouldn't need to work so long.  It might sometimes be possible to find other ways for people's needs to be met.

You really need to read the book, and probably a few times over, to immerse yourself in these ideas and let them permeate your thinking.  I would recommend it highly for it's potential to transform all your relationships, including the one with yourself.

I'm sure this way of looking at things can help us all to feel less aggression and other negative feelings.

A Reflection on Compassion and Non-Violence

Sunday will be the 8th day of the experimental No Impact Week and it is suggested we have an 'Eco-Sabbath'  by keeping all our electrical gadgets switched off.  I plan to visit my parents tomorrow, so that will be easy for part of the day, but I shall probably switch my computer on in the evening to skype my hubby, who is in Lausanne at the moment.

I think it is good to have a day a week to allow ourselves to unwind and reflect and be spiritual, in the sense of connecting with our deeper self, with other people and with the natural world around us.  I think I would still call myself a Christian, although I haven't been to church in a while, but these days my spirituality doesn't involve rules or doctrine, in fact that sort of thing strikes me as likely to stifle spirituality.

A couple of years ago I came across a Buddhist who writes books that made a lot of sense to me, and indeed one of his books is called 'Living Buddha, Living Christ' showed me an expression of Christianity that was very close to what I had come to believe at the same time as presenting Buddhism as very similar.  Both Jesus Christ and the Buddha seem to have wanted to show people a better way of living and these very similar ways have been adopted and adapted over the years into something rather different from what they were meant to be.