If you know me well then you know I like sports. From a very young age I was always involved with baseball or basketball or whatever sport happened to be going on during that season of the year. I even played soccer in the fall, but that was only because there weren’t enough kids for the team. For many years there has been an ongoing debate in major league baseball regarding the use of steroids. The “Steroid Era”, which was part of the game in the 1990’s and early 2000’s, was a period of time that many players were either suspected of or later admitted to using steroids or other performance enhancing drugs. As crazy as it may sound, steroids were not banned from the game of baseball during that time. There were no testing protocols in place until much later. I’ve always found it difficult to be sure of who did and who did not “cheat”? Is there any way to judge what really happened and who may have been “guilty”? Is it fair to judge others when you have no proof but merely are suspicious?
When you read the newspapers or watch TV it becomes obvious that there are a lot of problems in the world. The past five months have changed our way of life more than anything else in recent history. It’s hard to know who and what to believe at this point. There is information, misinformation, and lots of news, fake and otherwise. Do you remember the last time you heard a story and made a quick snap judgment about a person? It seems we are being pushed every day to make a decision. Which side are you on? If you’re not with us you’re against us. And yet people seek unity, but only if unity means joining my side. The world is a tough place right now.
It’s very easy to make a judgment or have an opinion. Some of us have mastered this and do it with great quickness. I heard recently the new national sport should be “jumping to conclusions”.
How often do we stop to consider the complete picture when we hear a story? Do we really know what is happening in any of these situations? Is a 30 second news clip or Facebook video enough to educate us? Have we ever walked a mile in someone else’s shoes? Do we ever have all the facts? If we are guilty of anything, I think we are guilty of making uninformed judgments about others or situations that we may know little to nothing about. How easy it is to make a judgment, assume we’re correct, and then just move on with life. Maybe we can stop doing that.
“God Himself, sir, does not propose to judge a man until his life is over. Why should you and I?” - Samuel Johnson.18th century English author
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