I’ve been thinking a lot about judgment lately. Judging. Don’t judge me. Judge not that ye be not judged. No judgment.

We all do it. We all do it fairly often, if we’re being honest here. We judge a person’s lifestyle, clothing, weight, behaviors, wealth or lack thereof, religion, sexual identity, sexual preference, comforts, entertainment, past, family, regional identity, ambitions, intelligence, etc. etc. etc. And it’s interesting because no one wants to be judged. To tell someone that they have no right to judge you is a pretty strong statement. It elevates the heat of everyone’s language. Depending on who you speak those words to, the person often has no response… it’s sends people reeling and searching for something to say. And perhaps we have nothing to say because we’ve been called out… caught judging. And judging seems to be a universally frowned-upon activity. When it’s called that.

As a kid I used to listen to this (cassette tape!) Christian comedian. She was addressing the “judge not” passage and she says that the Bible says don’t judge, but we are allowed to be “fruit pickers.” I think the context was about choosing what company you keep and she said “by your fruits you shall know them” so you can pick those with the best fruit. But in picking we are automatically judging… judging one fruit as inferior and another as superior.

I, personally, don’t want to be a judgmental person. But I can’t figure out how to get there. Perhaps learning not to judge others lies somewhere in the realm of compassion.

But that is tricky too. I think there is a kind of judgment that is guised in compassion, the difference being that true compassion is agenda-less. It doesn’t approach its subject with a mission of conversion, or a mission at all! It’s just there. And if it doesn’t have an agenda then it doesn’t have expectations, which means that true compassion will not be offended when its subject doesn’t respond in the way that it desires.

I don’t know if that is even possible. I have struggled long and hard with the concept of expectations. A question I have still not resolved is: where is the difference between expectation and hope? In our dealings with family specifically the idea of expectations is usually so loaded it seems impossible to know what is healthy and acceptable and what is damaging and love-less. Inevitably someone will bring up the argument about allowing people to remain in their addictions or destructive behaviors versus expecting more of them. I don’t have a good answer for you folks (except, maybe, that expecting more of someone is still not necessarily helpful and is there not a way to interact that is both fixed and stable and healthy but is not contingent on the behavior of the the other?). But for me I just want to know about more practical things… how do I operate in a relationship without expectations that (he) will call or surprise me with a small gift or be there when I need it? Maybe the key is to understand that your expectations are just that… and communicate those expectations. Certainly the quickest road to bitterness would be harboring unvoiced expectations only to be disappointed over and over and over when your non-psychic partner fails to meet them.

I feel like I am both 1) way off topic and 2) not saying anything new, but I wanted to grapple with this some. Will likely come back to it later.