Many years ago, somewhere in the '60s, I first heard a line in a Dillon (ok, Dylan) song (don't even know the name of the song) which has been haunting me ever since. It went like this, She knows too much to argue or to judge.

I still don't know who she is or was or what the line really meant, but the line's rightness has suspended itself there in my mind, demanding to be heard, challenging me to grow, for longer than I suspect that most of you have been alive.

As I grow older and (prayerfully) wiser, I begin to catch slender slivers of it's meaning, that really do ring true in my heart. One of my most basic steps toward understanding is that we all operate on our own highest level, and that our highest level shifts up and down from day to day. Hopefully, we are moving continually (if not steadily) upward in our levels. Most of our understanding is a gift of our well-placed circumstances, not soley the fruit of our own intentional labors.

As I move slowly, painfully and precariously up the ladder of understanding, it is often embarrassing and humiliating to honestly look back on where I was in the past, even so recently as a year ago. I then have to make a huge and difficult choice--do I become upset at the shallowness of the person I used to be, or am I joyful that I have grown so far beyond that space?

I know for sure that I am far too imperfect to judge others for their failures. The only honorable goal I can seek is to be the very best, most honest, fairest, kindest, generous and considerate human being that I can be and I honestly know that I always fall short of that mark, but I keep trying. I still have a lot of work to do dealing with the plank in my own eye, before I'll be in a position to think about removing the speck from my neighbor's eye.

Curiously it was just as I was reading this thread today and thinking (I am ashamed to say) that perhaps I might possibly be a little more generous and forgiving than someone else, that I received a phone call from a friend on the East Coast. He wanted to let me know that he might not be available for a while because he had decided that the thing that that would make him happiest this holiday season would be to give the gift of life. He is going into the hospital to donate a kidney, not to a relative or friend but to a kidney bank, to save the life of a stranger. Obviously, I have a long , long way to go before I am in a position to judge anyone's motives.

As almost all of you all know, I am a great believer in Karma and I think this phone call was Karma's way of putting me in my place. I am no where near as far along the developmental line as I would wish and still have a long, long way to go before, "I know too much to argue or to judge".



[This message has been edited by Punki (edited 12-06-2000).]