I’d just missed the bus, watching it go by as I walked briskly toward the stop. So, I had a few minutes to wait. I’ve taken a more leisurely view of my surroundings, riding public transportation here—whether the bus, the ferry, or even a water taxi. You see the city (and the people in it) differently when you take transportation that slows down your time and attention.

A couple of days ago I came across these words from Henri Nouwen’s book, The Way of the Heart, and since then, the ideas have turned up in other forms all around me.

In my morning Lectio Divina, I contemplated the story from the second chapter of Luke’s gospel. Jesus asks a tax collector, Levi, to be his follower.  Jesus goes to Levi’s house for dinner that evening where there are other tax collector kinds of people in attendance. And the neighbor’s say Jesus shouldn’t do that.

I suppose you might conclude that the neighbors are just considering the facts—that tax collectors are not nice people (in the time that Jesus lived) and Jesus is supposed to be, so he shouldn’t be having a casual dinner with them. The neighbors are coming to a logical conclusion, forming an opinion, and that is what the dictionary says it means to make a judgment.

Henri Nouwen seems to also see how this might be how our “modern” minds think differently than the earliest Christian monastics, our Desert Fathers. (My emphasis added.)

If you would ask the Desert Fathers why solitude gives birth to compassion, they would say, “Because it makes us die to our neighbor.” At first, this answer seems quite disturbing to a modern mind. But when we give it a closer look we can see that in order to be of service to others we have to die to them; that is, we have to give up measuring our meaning and value with the yardstick of others. To die to our neighbors means to stop judging them, to stop evaluating them, and thus to become free to be compassionate. Compassion can never coexist with judgment because judgment creates the distance, the distinction that prevents us from really being with the other.   

The Way of the Heart

And then, words about judging others came up as I waited for the bus.

You see I’d been impacted by Nouwen’s insight as I struggle with my own continual “evaluation” of others, especially those closest to me, my family. Taking time to wait and watch, as I did, letting Nouwen’s troubling words sink in over a few days and just standing open to the moment at that bus stop yielded new insights.

Several people walked by me and one lady’s t-shirt startled me.

Judge me by my size. Do you?

For days, I’d been trying out how to write about my own melee, not only of judging others, I’ve been working really hard on being aware of that, but of evaluating others. And here was this lady’s t-shirt shouting at me.

She was maybe five feet tall, probably just past middle age, and weighed slightly more than her ideal body weight. Where I live, people of all ages walk and bike often. It is a bit unusual to see someone markedly overweight and this lady wasn’t exactly what her t-shirt hinted at either.

Not until I got home did I find out that the quote, Judge me by my size. Do you, is one of the 10 most popular quotes of Yoda from Star Wars. When I noticed the lady plodding past me, head down and determined, I thought she was making a statement—and on my ride home I considered the breadth and longevity of judging and the pervasive culture of evaluating…everything.

I covertly judge family members, when they don’t do things the way I might do them. I disguise the “judging” as helping, you know, I am older, have more experience, and see that their choices might not work out. And I similarly judge my enemies. I didn’t really think I had any real enemies, however, I am painfully aware of how much I am at odds with some public figures that I actually do not even know personally, yet this distance creates a safer and less informed judgment that seems harmless, right?

This is what this pretense sounds like. Is it true? Is it clear? Is it possible? Is it the best course? And then, Nouwen says STOP—give up measuring meaning and value of others with the yardstick that I’ve created to make sense of my own fears.

I’m almost finished reading Becoming, Michelle Obama’s memoir. On page 313 are these words.

As a kid, you learn to measure long before you understand the size or value of anything. Eventually, you learn that you’ve been measuring all wrong.

 And sometimes, it takes lots of practice to learn.

I’ve decided to read the gospel of Mark, a few verses each day, using the practice of Lectio Divina. That means I read a few verses out loud, slowly, two times and notice what words or phrases catch my attention or stand out in some way. I read the passage one more time to contemplate the words or phrase that stood out to me. Often what I “notice” is an idea that in some way links to something I’ve already been reading in another place or a circumstance I’ve been mulling over. Sometimes the words are ones that are very familiar but take on new significance.

One of my readings last week was Mark 1: 12 – 20. After Jesus’ public baptism by John the Baptiser, the story goes on to say that “the spirit immediately drove [Jesus} out into the wilderness…” That wasn’t necessarily something I hadn’t noticed before, however, the connection between being in the “public eye,” so to speak, and then retreating fit with my own experience right now.

I’ve had family staying for a time and I’ve depended on even a brief respite that reading and pondering provide. I struggle with the effort it takes for me to have people visit; yet, I want it to not be so. When visitors are sound asleep in the guest room, I am awake in my bed, as even daily tasks get co-opted into dilemmas. On the morning that I read these verses from Mark’s gospel, I knew that I, too, need time “inside” myself to be able to go outside—to get a different perspective than what the distorted night time brings when my small self looms large.

Almost every day, I do some kind of reading as meditation. I use scripture and/or other writings by regular people whose names you might know too. Almost every day, I write to become aware of my life with God and in my everyday world. For many years, my notebooks have also and continue to function as a “commonplace book” where I record quotes from scripture, all kinds of books or articles, and even quotes from movies or songs. I weave other peoples’ words with my own words and experience. When I don’t do that, it shows, inside and outside.

So, I guess I’m wondering why I was surprised that what caught my attention reading the first chapter of Mark was that Jesus needed that time, too. It sure makes me feel more understood.

Then I read a passage from Richard Wagamese’s book of meditations, Embers.

Home is a feeling in the centre of my chest of rightness, balance and harmony of the mind, body and spirit. Home is where the channel to Creator and the Grandmothers gets opened every day and where life gains its focal point. …in that is the sure and quiet knowledge that home is within me and always was.

That is what my time alone, spent in the knowledge that God is my dwelling place, brings. Especially after a restless night or anxious response to whatever is going on outside, the time inside brings rightness, balance, and harmony of mind, body, and spirit. It is where I open a channel to my Creator and friend, in the presence of other people who have and continue to surround me. That is my home.

It was a picture of my new grandson smiling, sitting in a hotel room on his first vacation. He is six months old. Without much thought,I said that he doesn’t know he’s in a quaint coastal city or that he’s even on vacation, a meaningless idea at his age. He doesn’t even know what the next minute or the next hour holds. He doesn’t think about enjoying himself because the trip will be over in just a few days. He does know that he is with his parents and being taken care of right now.

After a few minutes of looking at that sweet face, I did think out loud, “We should be more like this little one.” I guess Jesus said that already. However, I never have been exactly clear about what that means for my life. Maybe the reason is that I want too much control or I don’t have that kind of courage.

Reading Embers, a book of meditations, I wondered if what Richard Wagamese says he has observed is related to that child-likeness.

It has been proven in my life that when your prayers are about gratitude for what is already here, creator and the universe ALWAYS send more. When you pray for what you WANT, creator and the universe only hear the wanting, and that’s what you create—more wanting.

 Sounds so straightforward, right? Yet, even when I try to disguise my desires, longing and belonging are mostly wrapped up in some form of material packaging.

Right now, I am not on vacation. In this past week, right where I live, on clear days (all but one or two this week) I’ve gazed regularly at snow-capped mountains in the distance. I’ve seen and touched the massive sinewy trunks of ancient Douglas firs that tower toward the sky. I’ve marveled at the gnarled red and green trunks of Arbutus trees and witnessed close up the wonder of the monkey-puzzle tree’s branches, so shapely and painful to touch. I’ve encountered more kinds of flowers and colors of green than one can imagine—stark black lilies and variegated begonias. I’ve viewed the ocean from craggy rocks and from sandy shores and traveled the harbour channel past yachts, rowers’ shells, mammoth barges, and abandoned sailboats currently occupied by shelter seekers.

And yet, in the Sunday newspaper’s Homes section, I thought about how I would like to live in a “house with a view” that I noticed in the seductive image that filled one page.

Wagamese goes on to advise,

Deciding is not doing and wanting is not choosing…move in the direction that brings you closer to creator in all things.

 “Know what is in front of your face,” Jesus said in The Book of Thomas.

It is early morning, and I have this day before me. Instead of wanting, how might I live in gratitude for what is in front of my face?

Like my grandson, be in the vacation without even knowing you are there…