Judgment

"If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility." -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Heroes in movies and stories often seem to know exactly how to "save the day" while maintaining their integrity, but real life seldom presents us with moral absolutes. Even when the answers seem obvious, finding the courage to act can be extremely difficult. Sometimes the decisions we've made in the past can limit our options, and other times we may find ourselves having to choose between loyalty to people and loyalty to principle.

A friend of mine found herself facing this type of ethical dilemma many years ago. She was working for a large company and came in one day to find a co-worker's suicide note among some papers on her desk. Her co-worker had killed himself by driving his car straight into the side of a cliff, and his family stood to receive a large life insurance payoff unless it could be proven that he had committed suicide. The note was given to my friend specifically because her co-worker felt he could trust her not to disclose the information to the insurance investigators or to the police. So she found herself having to choose between honoring her dead co-worker's trust--thereby ensuring that his grieving family would be provided for--or disclosing the existence of the note. I'm not even going to pretend that I would have known how to act if I had been in her shoes, and the right answer is anything but clear. I'm not familiar with all of the details and circumstances surrounding the situation, either, so it's difficult for me to pass judgment. But I will say that my friend chose to keep the suicide note a secret, justifying her actions in part by the fact that no one involved in the investigation asked her directly about its existence.

The natural tendency is to judge others even when we don't have all the facts, but if we truly took the time to understand the situation and the people involved we might not be so quick to condemn. Often choices that appear "black and white" only seem that way because we're seeing them from a distance. We cannot know the hidden wounds that others carry, nor can we fully appreciate the struggles they've faced. Each of us is imperfect and will one day be held accountable before a heavenly tribunal that will examine our hearts. We will be judged fairly and granted a harvest, for good or ill, based on the seeds we have sown throughout our lives. Until that day the vast majority of our judgments should be self-judgments.