Our Field of Reference

“The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. “But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

The words of Jesus quoted above refer to our way of looking at things.

One of the fundamental characteristics of our human personalities is the tendency to judge people or circumstances merely upon our own limited presuppositions and experiences....our internal blueprint for right and wrong. Not to say our judgments are necessarily flawed or wrongful for this tendency, but it is well for us to be aware of how limited we are in our appraisals. The pattern is universal, but the amount of truth and wisdom which any individual is blessed with varies. Jesus' internal blueprint, the eyes with which he looked out upon the world and each soul was flawless and balanced; without error or "caricature". Wisdom not only enlightens the judgment of the individual, but also moderates or blocks the inclination. The thrust of wisdom moves always towards friendship on the highest level of moral integrity. To put it another way, perhaps with greater "poetry", one might say in all wisdom, "everyone is invited into my house". But that doesn't mean that one's house has no rules written on its walls. The rules, if they are written in wisdom, were therefore written by the hand of God and cannot be erased. So those invited into one's house have their choice to remain or stay (in friendship), in response to the prescriptions of Wisdom. But our position maintains the invitation ongoingly if we are living in Wisdom, even if we suffer for it.

Often times it is "safe ground" for us to remain neutral rather than pass sentence. That doesn't mean that there are not rights and wrongs in terms of categories and behaviors considered in the abstract and, as such, revealed by God for our safety and wellbeing. And these principles need to be upheld and communicated. It is just that, in the legislative application of such standards we often error, or we are prone to error. For example, it is sometimes said that, "the faults that we most readily identify in others are in some way native to ourselves". This, of itself is no big deal. We identify things most inwardly familiar to us. It is just that our propensity to pass judgment comes into the picture, as we give a cold shoulder or produce some degree of uncharity in the presence of other's faults. Some psychologists would say that we do this in order to leverage or justify ourselves. If we are outspoken about the faults of others, many times we reveal our guilt in the same moral areas to the audience we are speaking to. The blueprint which we reference in our judgments is very likely our own(fallen) selves....and how imperfect is that blueprint? It is better to remain neutral in a spirit of charity than to judge our neighbor. It is allowed to us to make known in charity what has been revealed, but it is the position of God alone to judge or to pass sentence. It follows that everyone needs to be honest and careful in following their own inner lights of conscience, but also to remain friendly, tolerant and generous in their relations to others....leading by example