It's Judgement Day

The topic of judgement has been weighing heavily on my heart recently.  At times, I have been guilty of unfairly judging others.  I have passed judgement too quickly and perhaps unnecessarily.

With age comes wisdom right?  In the last couple years, I've learned to hold my tongue and done my best to give others the benefit of the doubt.  To be slow to pass judgement and quick to give second chances.

But I am not perfect.  I still judge people just as they judge me.  I admit it.  Standing in judgement of others is clearly wrong when it comes to race, sexual orientation, cultural background- yes, it is unequivocal wrong.  However, I firmly believe that there's a few circumstances where judgement is not only acceptable- it's needed.

Here's a few tragic examples of when judgment may have saved a life:

A Mother who throws her child off a bridge because he's autistic.

The Mom who drowns herself in a bottle, hops in the car and drives her family into a tree.

A teenager who shoots up his school because he was suffering typical teenage angst.

The Dad who kills his wife and then sets fire to his house, killing his young children.

Sure, we can make excuses for these people.  Perhaps the Mother of the autistic boy is suffering from her own mental illness or the Dad has recently lost his job and is drowning his sorrows in a bottle.  Of course we can do our best to understand, to empathize, to try to explain away these horrific occurrences.  But why should we?

Where is the person standing up, judging them and saying- "NO.  This is not OK."  Where is this brave person who is willing to demand better for our children?  They are hiding, masked under the "thou shalt not judge" credo and they are too afraid to speak their minds.

Yes, judgement can be very, very wrong.  It can be hurtful, it can have lasting consequences and it can effect our overall moral compass.

But judgement can also be very, very right.  It can stand in the face of harm, it can demand better, it can inspire us to want more as a society and as a community.

So I'm here- standing up and saying, that yes- I want better for our children.  If I allow you the excuses- I am saying that I find this violence acceptable.  That this child's life is not important enough for me to say the difficult things that need to be said.  So yes, I judge you and I find you to be lacking.  As a parent, it is NOT OK to let your own mental illness go untreated.  It is NOT OK to murder your babies because it's difficult parenting them.  It is NOT OK to ignore your teenagers high risk behavior because you can't deal.  It is NOT OK.

Enough is enough.

I realize this is harsh.  Trust me when I say, that I understand many of you won't like what I'm saying.   However, this isn't about passing judgement out of disrespect or hatred.  It's not about thinking you are better than anyone else.  It's about waking up and saying that some things are simply not acceptable.

I implore you to step outside the box for just a moment and think about situations just like those examples above.  Would you step up and say something if you knew that you might just save a child from a tragedy?  Would you put aside your own uneasy feelings if you knew that it would make a real difference?  Of course you would.  This is simply what I'm saying here.  Sometimes it's OK to be that voice.  The one that questions, the one that interferes and yes- the one that passes judgement.