These are my thoughts about judgment and gossip.
It’s really easy to judge people. It’s really easy to assume people’s motivations and their reasons for doing the things they do. It’s easy to write people’s stories for them and write them off as bad or worse people. I consider myself a Christian, and the more I consider the words of Jesus and also my own personal experience of divine love - love that is all inclusive, all understanding, and unwavering - the more I am realizing how much judgment is actually a disease that critically cripples our experience of connection, unity, and ultimately love. If we are to grow into mature and more useful people, we inevitably will have to honestly face these judgmental tendencies in our own lives and come to crucial realization that we’re not really better than anyone.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a part of this problem. I have been in groups of people who’ve been speculating about other people’s character and decisions (while these people are never in the room of course), I’ve passed judgement on people who are different than me - people who struggle with things that I don’t struggle with, and ironically, people who exhibit the same distasteful behaviors that I myself practice. But as I’ve grown, a strange feeling has begun to gnaw at my inner person, my conscience. “Something just isn’t right” I’ve started to feel, during moments where I’d be exploiting someone else’s life and weaknesses just have a laugh or to make myself feel and look better in front of my other friends.
The irony is, we expect different treatment than what de dish out to others. I would say that almost every single person who reads this would like their friends and community to give them the benefit of the doubt during their difficult times and their personal failures. We would all like the space to fail and for people to walk with us through those times and try to understand the inner workings behind those moments, yet when it comes to everyone else, we fail to extend that same grace. The irony is so obvious it seems laughable. In my observations, environments that are filled with judgment and gossip aren’t safe for anyone. While there might be some laughs and some “revelations” (more accurately, judgments we spiritualized to shift accountability away from ourselves), I think the constant analyzation of other people’s lives without the intent to help them creates a rather poisonous environment. It’s all fun and games until everyone realizes - we always talk about people who aren’t in the room, so what does everyone say when I’m not in the room?
In Christianity, sex, drugs, alcohol and cursing are condemned easily and naturally, but things like judgment, gossip, gluttony and self-righteousness are given a free pass, sometimes even encouraged by the culture. Do not be deceived. These things are killing us too.
I’ve decided that I want to be the person who helps the people who are struggling. I do not want to be another part of the giant gossip machine that is most young people, even (and sometimes especially) Christians. I want to be a part of helpful and fruitful conversations. Honest conversations. I want to see the ostracized and marginalized people who have morally failed the community and themselves, the people who can’t quite seem to get it together. And I feel like I’ve only been able to come to that place because I’ve realized that I myself am that person. I want to work towards becoming a person who can include all, who doesn’t feel the need to separate himself as better. Because at the end of the day, we’re all on the same playing field. I want to become a different kind of voice out here. I want to be there person who actually follows through, who gives grace, who picks up the phone to walk with people through their life, who actually does something instead of just talks about it. I for one, no longer want to contribute empty words and harsh judgments without any cost to myself. Ultimately, judgment and gossip are easy because it cost nothing but love costs us our very lives and comfort. Let us remember that all the shit we talk in our lives dissipate as quickly and as cheaply as they came, but choices to actually exhibit love ring forever through time.
I know this is such a specific topic, but I have become very passionate about this. I really think that if we chose to graciously exit these patterns and offer solutions to people instead of just ripping apart their lives when they’re not in the room, some beautiful things could happen and we could find that our Christianity would actually begin to work.
With Love. A.B.