judging judging

the pain of empathy

empathy can be a hard taskmaster:

when I leap into someone

whose values antagonize my sense of rightness,

I want to reject that empathic leap,

as much as I want to understand

why some supported Trump for President,

when I feel their hatred and fear of the other,

the immigrant, the woman, the different,

I am soiled with the hate I feel in them,

when I leap into a person

whose religion demands of her, of him,

a damning judgement on anyone

who has another Savior than theirs,

another path with the spirit that isn’t their path,

I am offended by what I feel to be a self-centered religiosity,

I live the quandary

of rejecting others’ judging I find excessive,

yet I judge that judging?

maybe, somehow, I need to love better those who hate,

if I live long enough,

maybe I can understand the truth Jesus lived,

to love even those I don’t understand,

those it pains me to be for a time.

by Henry H. Walker

January 27, ‘18