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judgment

Tempted to Judge

Tempted to Judge

It’s so easy to be tempted to judge, isn’t it? Last night, my wife and I watched the 1955 version of Oklahoma. I had two major observations from the movie:

  • My mother learned to sing from Shirley Jones because she loved the movie and when my Mom sang, she sounded just like her.
  • It is so easy to judge others, even fictional characters
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Photo by Raychel Sanner on Pexels.com

Mom and Shirley Jones

I grew up with my mother singing The Surrey With the Fringe on Top. She sang other tunes from the movie, I’m sure. But that is the one that sticks out to me. She is a big fan of Rogers and Hammerstein musicals. After all, one of my earliest memories is of my parents taking me to a drive-in to see The Sound of Music. I don’t remember much except the opening scene and how comfy the back seat was for a long nap.

My mother loves to sing. And besides hymns, her repertoire included a heaping helping of Rogers and Hammerstein tunes. During a certain time in the sixties, she would also pepper her performances with The Girl From Ipanema.

Too Easy to Judge

I found myself judging the Curly, Laurie and Jud from the moment I saw them. I suppose that is a main objective in any play, movie or TV show. If you don’t know who the hero and the villain is from the outset, the show may fall flat. Yet, when we are led to believe a character is a hero, only to discover they are a villain, we are even more glued to a show.

We are prone to judge characters in a show. But aren’t we also apt to do so in other circumstances?

  • How many times do we judge someone we never met, but are in the news?
  • Don’t we judge others because of their appearance?
  • Doesn’t gossip color our perception of someone? Does it matter if we know them or not?

The movie reminded me of how tempting it is to judge others we barely know. It can also ruin or close relationships when it leads to criticism. No wonder Jesus warned us about the trap of judging others.

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

Matthew 7:1–2 (NIV)

Yes, everyday we are tempted to judge others. I shudder everytime I think I could be judged by the same standards I judge others. I hope Curly, Laurie and Jud will forgive me.

Categories
motivation

Burning Down the House

Burning Down the House

“If you burn your neighbor’s house down, it doesn’t make your house look any better.”
Lou Holtz

Lou Holtz Quotes. BrainyQuote.com, BrainyMedia Inc, 2022. https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/lou_holtz_153611, accessed January 7, 2022.

Whether you call it backstabbing, mud-slinging, disparagement, gossip, or some other term, it doesn’t do us any good to burn down another person’s house. Negative comments don’t do us any good.

We can tear our friends and neighbor’s down if we like, but we still end up in the middle of a mess. We look weaker for it. We know if someone is negative about another person, they are most likely negative about us as well. So we are cautious about that person. What house will they burn down next?

Politicians have been caught in this trap for decades. When they go against each other, it’s the last person standing that may win, but they don’t look any stronger. The negative ads and comments only make the victor look weak.

It is far better to love our neighbor than to burn down their house. Let’s keep our neighborhood pristine and keep the conversation positive.

Categories
motivation

How to Waste Time

How to waste time

Nobody needs a lesson on how to waste time, do they? Or do we think it’s so obvious we don’t realize there are subtle ways to ruin a day?

There are plenty of examples of time-sucking activities. However, what came to mind when you read the headline? Did any of these thoughts come to you about wasting time?

  • A slacker just sits in front of their TV each day
  • Someone at work doing anything but work
  • A social butterfly flitting between people, spreading gossip and idle chit chat to their surroundings

We look at disdain to people we consider lazy and unproductive. But what we don’t realize is how often we waste time being busy. It is possible to be incredibly busy but doing the wrong things.

  • We can stay up late, then wake up late in a manic push to get out the door
  • Some of us can be tempted to just answer email instead of consider long-term planning
  • An alert on our phone can distract us from an important task we are doing

We don’t have to be idle to waste time. Focusing all our energy on urgent matters that aren’t important can make us waste just as much time as someone who isn’t busy. In fact, we need downtime and breaks to keep us from burning out. Consider taking a break and do the following:

  • Write a list and consider what is really important for today
  • Turn off phone notifications when you need to focus
  • Spend some time considering what is important in the long-term as opposed to what seems urgent today that won’t matter tomorrow
  • Take a look at the toxic time triangle and consider if your life is out of balance

There are too many ways to waste time. Let’s consider how slowing down and taking a look at what’s important can keep us from wasting more of it.

Categories
motivation

Technology is Temporary

Technology is Temporary

Yesterday, the big news was that the classic BlackBerry operating system would no longer be supported. There was a time I would have loved to have a BlackBerry. But I had to settle for a Palm Pilot. Do you remember those? Alas, technology is temporary. What was the hottest thing twenty years ago now looks like unusable junk.

As a result, for technology to be relevant, it must advance. One day, my iPhone will be useless. Unless I keep up, the laptop I’m using today will be a relic tomorrow.

I once did a post on making the best use of technology. I wrote it at about the time the COVID pandemic was in full swing. At the time, I wondered if I would be working remotely and how to handle it. It didn’t happen then but did this week. The virus keeps mutating and we have to adjust. In a sense, technology is like a mutating virus. We either have to adjust or get left behind. Progress is rough, isn’t it?

But if there was no change to face, life would be pretty boring. We need to change and grow or things stagnate. I think of this every time I drive by a neglected farm house. It could be a nice place if someone adjusted and made made improvements long ago. But today, it is rotting away. The house and barn roofs have holes in them. Nobody would want to live there without a total overhaul.

Therefore, we must move on and ditch the BlackBerries. We need to keep growing and adjust to what is coming next. Technology is temporary, much like every other area in life. When we adjust, we grow and improve. But when we resist, we neglect and end up with a bunch of useless junk.

Categories
motivation

Seeking the Lofty

Seeking the Lofty Thornton Wilder

A quote by Thorton Wilder reminds me how we need to be involved in seeking the lofty and watch our mental diet as much as our physical one.

“Seek the lofty by reading, hearing and seeing great work at some moment every day.”
Thornton Wilder

Thornton Wilder Quotes. BrainyQuote.com, BrainyMedia Inc, 2022. https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/thornton_wilder_122026, accessed January 4, 2022.

Garbage in, garbage out is a cliche not just for computer programmers but for people as well. Do we consider how the media we consume affects us? Could we do better by intentionally consuming material that will lift us up as well as others? In other words, is what we’re taking in edifying?

Cartoon of a pastor at a pulpit with a coffee maker. He says, "Today's sermon will be fully edifying, inspirational and caffeinated."
Published in the “Church of God ENewsletter.”

I will confess that I have to watch this all the time. Like everyone else, I am prone to take the bait of breaking news that is really more broken than breaking. I can be drawn to clickbait about a football player with a bad attitude or an outrageous politician that said something offensive.

We all have choices. None of us need to be led along by sensational headlines that only give us mental junk food. The Internet can give us just as much good material as the bad. We just have to be more intentional and look for it. Let’s look for the lofty today.