That is, he can tell what kind of being he is dealing with at the moment: in the first case, it's someone who appears to be a man but is actually a wolf in his nature. In the second case, he can tell it's the young, lovely, and gentle woman that his mother actually is in her character despite her appearance as a elderly and work-hardened woman.
Curdie, however, is limited in one important point of his knowledge: he can only tell what kind of being it is at that very moment he touches its hand. He cannot know the direction the creature is heading in life: is the man becoming more human and less wolf, or is he becoming more wolf and less human? Curdie cannot tell which, only what he is at the present moment.
The woman who gave Curdie this gift warns him about judging the beings he touches:
But you must beware, Curdie, how you say of this man or that man that he is traveling beastward.... Just so two people may be at the same spot in manners and behaviour, and yet one may be getting better and the other worse, which is just the greatest of all differences that could possibly exist between them. (MacDonald, p. 69)And that, my friend, is a point.
(Source: Gutenberg)
A person on an internet broadcast put it this way about a woman who was thinking about cheating on her fiancee: "She's crazy because you can't actually have one incident like that in a vacuum and it doesn't rear its ugly head at some point in the future. It's always going to have a bearing..." (Leasure). No doubt there are very serious issues underlying a choice like that -- and if the woman went ahead with that action, there would be painful consequences.
But there's that word: "Always." That word sounds more like Freud, B. F. Skinner, or anyone else who believes more in Logical Positivism and social/psychological/
So yes: if we're honest, we all do this: we all tend to make and hold onto our judgements about individuals, condemn them to an "Always," making a judgement once and holding it forever. It can be an individual we've never met -- just someone we've heard something about. Still, we create an image of that person based on little or no evidence -- and without understanding. We hold onto and preserve that image as something that's true for all time -- that sad "Always...." To put it in light of George MacDonald's tale, unlike Curdie, we assume that when someone does something wrong, the deed defines that person for life and eternity.
Yet our images of people have a simple but radical flaw: as with a photograph, our images show people only at a particular millisecond in time, not where they may be headed the next moment, not what they might be for the rest of life, nor what they will be for eternity -- for better or worse as that may be. And -- as with a photo, even one taken using a "wide" point of view (a wide-angle lens) -- we will never get the whole picture, just a very narrow vision of a scene. Things are left out of the picture that we can't see, let alone judge. It is only a snapshot in time.
It might be that we find even two or three images of a person in a habitual pose...but is it the whole story? How do we interpret that? It may say something important about the person in some moments if there are multiple images; yet it may not define that person's "Always." I don't think anyone would want to be judged by even a few pictures of themselves along life's way. It may be that those poses do not define them at present; nor will the images define their future.
Here's the rub: if we actually believe in the rehabilitation of the human being (and as a Christian, I'd say the redemption and renewal of a human soul), then snap judgements go directly against a hope and belief for individuals to be remade -- just as we hope for ourselves. Ironic, that.
Here's even more irony. When we hold someone in judgement, it's certainly a problem for the person we judge -- but it's more serious for us. "Judge not lest you be judged." There's a word. And it continues: "For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you." You ready to welcome that?
Yes, true: sometimes we need to make judgements about a person for a moment, to make distinctions (we're not very smart if we set up to play cards with a shark -- or go shop for a car from a snake); even then, we're only making a judgement of what the condition is at present (like Curdie's gift -- knowledge applying only to the present moment). We cannot say where the being is headed: for better or worse? And C. S. Lewis points to the future of every being we meet:
It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible Gods and Goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature, which if you saw now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no “ordinary” people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. (Lewis 45-46)To judge them for "Always," we'd have to build an understanding from a broad context of a person's life -- things we may not be able to know, past and present. And we'd need to be able to see the future: what might they meet that would change things in them? And that runs straight into "Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.” There's another word.
"Right judgement," an accurate picture, is exactly what ratings and review sites on the web attempt to show us: a clear tendency, for good or ill. But even then, an online review -- just like the banter of people in a circle of gossip -- can warp the truth we need to make an accurate judgement. And because judgements often create more division than unity, they must be accurate.
Can You See the Future Through That?
What if our judgement, our view, is not accurate? A picture out of perspective is, simply, a false image. There is no accurate context for reasoning in
such a judgement. It is mere opinion unsupported with fact, context,
or understanding of what is real -- it's opinion: the pablum of
thought. That, for instance, is what Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is all about.
So?
If we heap a load of false judgement on someone's back, he must labor
under it in some respects -- a weight which we ourselves wouldn't want
to carry. That is precisely why Jesus condemned the lawyers and religious leaders of His day:
"They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s
shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their
finger." Ironically, those who judge in such a way are those He
condemned while the person strapped with a load of false judgement goes
off justified -- forgiven.
The fascinating thing is
this: holding people to a judgement (holding them "Always" to a snapshot, to a single past moment in life) not only binds on their backs something
that they may well have grown beyond but also binds them with the guilt
of something for which they've already been forgiven. You get that
paradox? They've been forgiven; we attempt to re-instate their guilt.
We're loading them with that sad "Always...."
Irony
yet again: when we load others, we load ourselves with the same judgement.
We heap on our own backs the guilt for things we may have grown past,
things for which we may have been forgiven: we place an "Always" on our
own backs.
How so? When we judge, we condemn ourselves
as certainly as we condemn others. That's the great paradox: "Forgive
others as you would be forgiven"; and "unless you forgive, your Father
in heaven will not forgive you." That's yet another word. So we're forgiven by God...only when we forgive others? Yep: forgiven except if we extend condemnation -- unless we are someone who refuses to connect the dots of our own
sins.
"Those who do not think about their own sins make up for it by thinking incessantly about the sins of others." (C. S. Lewis)
And let's see: my sin is less than someone else's? Yeah, well. It's never good to run with sharp objects -- or thoughts like those. In fact it's pretty stupid if I begin to believe that a white lie is worse than stealing (or any other sin) in God's eyes. They are the same, though consequences in this life may be different. They both equally move the soul from the condition and the relationship to God it should be in. Even one.
So what about any single misdeed, any wrong done, any sin? Evelyn Waugh
(referring to a French maxim) has it this way: "To understand all is to
forgive all." I doubt that any human will ever understand all. But
there's Jesus, who hangs on the cross and says "Forgive them, Father;
they know not what they do." He understood all and did not condemn, and
then He did even more. He took the weight off of us. "There is now no
condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."
Modified from Banksy
Let's turn this around: instead of the absence of a negative ("not putting judgement on someone's back"), let's go to the positive: "lift the weight off."
When we help to lift the weight of judgement -- and even the just consequences of bad choices -- off others' backs, it is freeing for both us and them. That's the moment we allow another person to become more himself, we give him hope and help him to rise above the past, and we are allowed to see and enjoy, to benefit from, the person as he really is and becoming as opposed to what our snapshot-judgement tells us he is.
A good friend -- a friend of over 40 years now -- and I have seen one another at our best and at our worst. When at the worst, neither of us has judged the other; we have never laid down the "law" to one another (we already speak the same language of what is right and true and good -- it need not be said). In our worst of times -- times when we have "lost" ourselves and have suffered grim consequences -- we have prayed for the person to return to what is good and right; and on that return, we have been confessors to one another and commiserated together over inevitable and sometimes unalterable consequences. The reason we have been able to grow out of past things is precisely this: we have not judged, we have not condemned to an "Always" but rather helped to lift the load from one another's backs. We have advised one another, but not judged. We have understood our own failings while looking on those of the other.
So it is with every relationship in life (can any marriage, can any family continue soundly if not for this place, this "home," which is not judgement but openness and acceptance, albeit with the happy expectation and commitment to being on our way to growing better -- together?). And so should it be with any friendship -- a place with room to grow together.
By removing the load -- by removing the judgement and the consequences of a bad past -- from someone's back, we allow that person to grow, to change, to live. And it opens doors in our own lives as well as in the other person's life.
If faith can move mountains, why can we not help lift a mountain off someone's shoulders? Zacchaeus sits in a tree, a small man loaded down with guilt, rejection, and loneliness. The woman caught in adultery sits before her accusers, loaded with the shame of her deeds and the fear of being pummeled to death. The man stands in the temple, unable to look up to heaven and pleads, "Lord forgive me, the sinner" -- all of them loaded down with the simple consequences of their own misdeeds.
In the Psalms (81) is this:
I heard an unfamiliar voice: I lifted the load from his shoulders; his hands let go the builder's basket. When you cried to me in distress, I rescued you; I answered you from the thunder-cloud....Georges Bernanos expressed it this way in his brilliant work The Diary of a Country Priest:
And yet I feel that such distress that has forgotten even its name, that has ceased to reason or to hope, that lays its tortured head at random, will awaken one day on the shoulder of Jesus Christ. (p. 42)And what about judging yourself? Bernanos again:
How easy it is to hate oneself! True grace is to forget. Yet if pride could die in us, the supreme grace would be to love oneself in all simplicity--as one would love anyone of those who themselves have suffered and loved in Christ. (p. 231)So. What else is there to say? How about this: "Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls, and stand he will because the Lord is able to make him stand." That's a huge word for both how you picture yourself and picture others.
And (I mentioned it earlier) just what is gossip? Gossip is presenting a snapshot of someone in their worst moments and leaving it there as an always. Does the image provide a context, reasons, understanding? Does it take into account what that person is today, quite removed from those images shaped out of former deeds? Does the image allow for the same hope, the same mercy, the same grace you would allow yourself for the future?
How about this: "One who covers up another's offense seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates close friends."
To present before others an image of a person at his worst and let it remain as an always is a great wrong. It is a metaphorical stoning, an obliteration of a person created in God's image, someone who isn't finished becoming. It is to prohibit that person from becoming -- at least in others' minds -- and clouds the image of God and His continuing work in them. Most often those gossiping over an always image are those who believe themselves to be without -- or certainly to be with less -- guilt. Gossip always comes from people who sport flowing robes of self-justification and sanctimony -- all for the purpose of throwing the stones of condemnation. More often than not, it's done for revenge, from insecurity, out of jealousy....
How does Shakespeare say it? The Merchant of Venice:
"How shalt thou hope for mercy, rendering none?" (4.1.88)and
"The quality of mercy is not strained...."Let he who is not guilty cast the first stone." Just drop the bucket of rocks and step away. "Neither do I condemn you."
. . . . .
It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
. . . . .
Therefore...
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That in the course of justice none of us
Should see salvation." (4.1.182-185; 195-198)
So. Find me in these fields alone. Let's talk.
Sources Cited
Bernanos, Georges. The Diary of a Country Priest. Trans. Pamela Morris. New
York: Image, 1974.
Lewis, C. S. The Weight of Glory. New York: HarperOne, 2001.
MacDonald, George. The Princess and Curdie. Harmondsworth, England: Puffin,
1982.
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