I Stand in Judgement

Between the Roots has me thinking about judgement. Friday night on the soup run, I stopped near a bus shelter that I have noticed the homeless have been using while the stop is closed. I noticed there was a gentleman sitting on the ground nearby. His beard was all over the place. He had a few bags beside him that were overflowing, and from where I was sitting, they looked like they might be everything he owned. So I rolled over and offered him some soup and water. He laughed, then asked me, “Do you think I’m homeless?” I said yes. Kinda. There was no graceful recovery from that one. I started explaining why I thought he was homeless and, because apparently I had already dug the hole and decided it needed a basement, my mouth started speaking before my brain caught up. It started with the beard, the bags, where he was sitting and the closed bus shelter. He laughed again. We talked for a few minutes, and he told me how quickly people make assumptions about someone based entirely on what they see. He even admitted I was not the first person who had thought the same thing about him. I had judged him. I could explain why. I could point at everything I saw and make a pretty convincing argument for why I reached the conclusion I did. But explaining the judgement does not make it disappear. Before I knew anything about him, I had already put him into a category. The strange part is that I should know better. When I lived in Winnipeg, there was a man I used to see on the same street corner on my way to work. Winter or summer, he was there. Winnipeg could be throwing minus forty at him or plus forty, and somehow that man and his squeegee would still appear. Looking at him, most people probably would have assumed he was homeless and washing windshields for whatever spare change he could get. Except that was not his story. He lived in a million-dollar home. He had made enough money doing something he enjoyed that he could put both of his kids through university. And he did not simply wash your windshield. That would apparently have been far too boring. He would do cartwheels, somersaults and flips while working his way around the car, then have your windshield finished before the light changed. Some days, if I saw a stale green light ahead, I would actually slow down a little hoping it would turn red before I reached him. I usually kept loose change in the car and regularly gave him a few dollars. Sometimes he cleaned my windshield and sometimes he did not. It did not really matter. I was paying for the show. Then there is the other side of it. I have seen someone I knew was living on the street pass by me clean, dressed in a business suit and looking like he was heading to a meeting. Someone passing him on the sidewalk might have assumed he had a job, a home and somewhere important to be. They would never know that he may have borrowed those clothes, found somewhere to get cleaned up and put himself together because he was trying to find work. The man who looked homeless wasn't, while the man who looked like he had everything together might have been sleeping outside that night. Then there is Park Guy. Someone seeing him spending the summer outside could easily make another judgement. Homeless, unemployed, maybe he does not want to work. But I know a little more of his story. He works about eight months of the year. He spends the summer outside because it allows him to save enough money to afford somewhere to live during the months he is working. You might not make the same choice. I might not make the same choice. But that is not the point. The point is that none of us would know his reason simply by walking past him in the park. And still, standing beside that bus shelter Friday night, my brain took a beard, some bags and a man sitting on the ground and completed the rest of the story without asking him. We do that incredibly quickly. We notice clothing, a car, a house, a shopping cart, a wheelchair, a beard or a suit. We notice where somebody is sitting, how they speak or what they smell like. Sometimes the judgement happens so quickly that we do not even notice ourselves making it. The pieces go into our heads, and suddenly that person belongs in a category. Homeless or rich. Poor or successful. Lazy, addicted, responsible, irresponsible, safe or dangerous. We have written half their story before they have even told us their name. That does not mean every judgement we make will be wrong. Sometimes the person I offer soup to really is hungry. Sometimes someone sleeping outside really has nowhere else to go. Sometimes what we see is part of the truth. But it is still only the part we can see. And I think what matters is what happens when I realize I have judged someone. I can defend myself. I can explain the beard, the bags and the bus shelter until I have proven that my assumption was reasonable. I can search for reasons why I should have been right. Or I can admit that I put someone into a box before I knew their story. That night, I did. I stood in judgement. Not because I wanted to hurt him. I was actually trying to help. But good intentions do not magically turn an assumption into truth. Maybe I will never completely stop those tiny judgements from appearing. They happen quickly, sometimes before I even realize they are there. But I can decide what happens next. I can hold onto them and defend them, or I can put down the gavel long enough to listen. Because I do not know someone's life from the tiny piece of it I happened to walk past. Between the Roots, I stand in judgement. And when I realize I am standing there, maybe the most important thing I can do is stop trying to prove why I was right and give the person in front of me the chance to tell me who they actually are.