It is a basic premise in our society, supposedly, that you are innocent until proven guilty. Words have always fascinated me. Take the premise I began with – “innocent until proven guilty.” The essence of “innocent” is blameless, free of sin or guilt. Can any stand free of that charge? If my action is “innocent” but my intent and thoughts were to cause harm, am I still considered innocent? Proven means to try, test, evaluate, demonstrate, and judge. But against what and whose standards? Saints, Jews, Native Americans, Japanese-Americans during World War II, “witches”, and others throughout history have been judged, tested, evaluated and proven guilty against standards. Even Pilate washed his hands proclaiming, ‘What is truth.’  Guilty, much like innocent and proven, means judged to have committed some specific offense. It would seem the very premise gets caught in circular reasoning when left to stand alone.

The reasoning becomes even more pronounced when we judge ourselves. When expectations aren’t met, why do we immediately, without question, assume I f*’d up? I did something wrong. It’s all my fault. We don’t even wait for the scales of justice to weigh and determine the degree of imbalance, responsibility, or even to judge that despite the outcome balance is in fact the reality and there is no blame. How quickly we assemble the charges, jury, judge, and verdict. Case closed. I am the bad seed. I am to blame.

I have no intent to address the first premise. Indeed, that is at the heart of our community, state, societal, national, and international confusion and chaos it would seem. But the second, how quickly we judge ourselves keeps getting thrown against my heart. Our unconscious pronouncement of self-judgement. Our capitulation to the immediate judgement of others without question keeps breaking my heart.

If only we could teach ourselves and the young ones, to ask a different question. Perhaps instead to ask if my actions, words, thoughts, and intent honored my heart? If our reflection says no, then to ask, what do I need to do now to honor my heart? What can I learn? How can my learning benefit not only my heart but others? Surely even such a simple change in perspective would be less judgmental than to condemn ourselves as being essentially bad, to blame and condemn ourselves as worthless, and flawed. If our reflection were to say yes, the heart was truly honored, then to ask for the grace of compassion for those who continue in their judgments…to love even more.

Truly a little scrich with no resolution. Another bookmark to return to one day when more wisdom graces my words and heart. For now, I guess, I will just sit with the pondering.  For now, I pray, somehow and in some small way, my eyes can convey to those who would so judge themselves just how beautiful and imperfectly perfect they are. And the same for myself.

Namaste…