Seen and Unseen

Comedian Bill Engvall coined the phrase, “Here’s your sign.”  In the way only a comedian can, he tells us people should wear “signs” so everyone else will know who they are (he’s referring to people who tend to do or say things that aren’t exactly intelligent – such as touching a hot iron and saying, “Ouch, that’s hot!” leaving us inwardly thinking, “no kidding Einstein”!)

In a sense, we do wear signs, they just aren’t evident to everyone.  On the front, we wear a “sign” which we present to everyone only what we want them to see.  We are nice, loving, caring, hardworking, faithful, successful, rich or whatever it is we ourselves want others to see in us.

We wear another “sign” on the back.  This sign lists our faults.  We don’t want anyone to know what this sign says and we really believe no one has any idea what’s on it either.  We don’t want anyone to know we are insecure, afraid, have an anger problem, in debt up to our noses, in a suffering marriage, estranged from our children, self-righteous, stuck-up or whatever it is we don’t want others to know about us, including sometimes, ourselves.

We are not supposed to, but we judge people based on what we can see.  We tend to forget that there is a whole other side to the story that we cannot see.  We get upset because Father didn’t stop and talk to us after Mass because he was in a rush to get out of church and on with his day, but we didn’t know the hospital just called and he was needed at a dying person’s bedside.

Our in-laws call and invite themselves for a week long visit and we feel put out because it doesn’t fit into our schedule and then we find out at the end of the visit that dad has been diagnosed with colon cancer and nothing can be done.  He’s dying and wanted to see us one last time.

We get angry when a young woman goes in to have an abortion because we know for a fact it’s wrong.  We forget that she has probably been taught that it’s perfectly okay to do because she has a “choice” and that she needs love and forgiveness instead of anger and resentment from us.

On and on and on we judge each other, instead of loving each other, because of what we think we see.  Only God can see all things and He loves us infinitely more than we will ever love one another.

Every time we start to judge someone, we must stop and pray for that person instead (this will take practice).  If that person truly has the defect we are making judgments about, then they need our prayers.  I urge you to pray for yourself though, asking God to keep you from falling into that defect as well (if you haven’t already!).