Instant judgements

We all make them, and occasionally regret them. We take one look at someone, and decide how we will react to them.

I've heard about Susan Boyle a few times this week. Don't recognise the name? That's not really surprising. She's appearing on a TV talent show (see video). If you haven't seen it, it's worth watching - not just for her amazing voice, but for the reactions and (towards the end) the honest assessment by Amanda Holden of the prejudice that Susan instantly faced.

I won't be following the contest, although I will no doubt hear it on the news if she wins, but the challenge is: how do I avoid making the same kind of judgement tomorrow, and the day after that?

Values, teddy bears and a pound of flesh

I was originally going to call this entry “Hypocrisy, teddy bears and a pound of flesh” – but that would be judgmental (not good!), so I’ve amended the title.

Now that Gillian Gibbons is safely heading back to the UK, I thought that it was safe to blog about this. (The last sentence started its life as a joke, but as I type it I wonder…)

Anyway, Gillian’s story can be found over at the good old BBC. There was outrage in the UK, including from the Muslim Council of Britain; and there was some (limited as far as I know) protest in Sudan that the sentence was too lenient.

What judgments did we make? Did we wonder why a teacher wasn’t aware of the potential offence in a culture that she had entered? Did we think in terms of ‘fundamentalists’?

Next story – Wendy Alexander has apparently received illegal contributions to her leadership campaign (see BBC again). One aspect that really puzzles me – why do you need a fund to fight an uncontested election? Surely you just turn up on the day, vote for yourself without spoiling the ballot paper, and you’re in! Anyway, the donation was from someone not on the UK electoral roll and was, intriguingly, for slightly less than the amount where donations have to be made more public.

What judgments did we make?
Political sleaze?
Cannae run a raffle, never mind the country?
“Off with her head!”

Anyone spotted the connection yet?

I’m quite fond of quoting Burns, especially:

“O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us

Tae see ourselves as ithers see us."

Also, something about specks and beams.

One final question about these two cases – who clyped?

Doesn't do what it says on the tin!

This week we’ve had a bit of stooshie (several steps short of a stramash) over a legal ruling in relation to the policy of Free Personal Care in Scotland. Now I accept that this is the field that I work in, and therefore, my musings here may be of interest to no-one but me. Two key issues emerge for me from this week’s events.

Firstly, the Scottish Government was criticised by the judge (admittedly in very polite, legal code) for not accepting his invitation to attend the hearing and explain the intention that lies behind the legislation. This criticism was seized upon by political opponents as a dereliction of duty etc, etc.

I’m glad that the Government didn’t send a representative to the court. As I understand it our legal system is built around an independent judiciary, making judgement on the basis of the legislation passed by Parliament. Any move toward Government explaining its intentions in court seem to me to be a dangerous erosion of the process and could be exploited for all sorts of political purposes. Instead, the legislature should make sure that the statutes that they pass are carefully worded to ensure that the policy intentions are adequately and competently described.

In other words – politicians should do their jobs properly, then the courts can do theirs.

Secondly, and something that I’ve been concerned about since this policy was introduced. Free Personal Care is not new and it’s not free. It’s not new since the provision of social care in this country is based on assessed needs, not ability to pay. The amount that anyone is asked to contribute towards the cost of the care provided to them is then (and only then) assessed according to their financial situation. For the poorest people this means that care has (generally) always been free. The advent of the current ‘flagship’ policy has meant that the more affluent users of care services have received more subsidy from the state. I’m not saying that this is a bad thing in itself, it’s just that the language used in this area is misleading.

For my tuppence-worth, I’d like to see our politicians refraining from political ambushes and one-up-manship and asking the big questions about the provision of care.

• Do we want to be socially progressive in this area?
• If so, should all care be truly free?
• How does this interact with the welfare benefits system?
• How will it apply as the demographic composition of our population changes in the next 20 years?

Then, when we’re clear about the way forward, we can amend the legislation so that it does what it says on the tin – without the need to explain the underlying intentions.

By the book

"I haven't read a book in my life. I haven't got enough time. I prefer to listen to music, although I do love fashion magazines."
Victoria Beckham

According to the BBC website, (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6285740.stm) we are reading more. Apart from Victoria Beckham – and I’m not going down that road! As Albert Einstein said:

“I refuse to engage in an intellectual battle with an unarmed man.”

‘Nuff said.

Anyway, the BBC story seems like good news - although I suppose that it depends to some extent on what is being read. Research like this is interesting, but is it valuable? Actually, I’m not going to knock it or over-analyse – just accept it as good news. I like the idea of filling gaps in schedules with reading. Given that I’m ‘pathologically early’ for everything, it’s been a habit of mine for many years to carry journals and articles with me to read in the inevitable gaps.

However, one of my bad habits has been to read a few chapters of a book and then shelve it for months, while I pick up another one repeat the process. I recently had to tidy up my bookshelves (enough to make them presentable) because we had visitors coming. So I found all the partially read stuff, and put them in the priority pile, with a challenge to myself to get through (all the way through) them over the summer. We’ll see how that goes.

And finally for today, I surprised myself. I was thinking about Romans 12, and found myself looking at the message version. Now I have a long‑standing aversion to the Message. I’ve nothing against Eugene Peterson. If I’m honest about it, it’s probably intellectual snobbery or pretentiousness on my part, but it’s real enough to me! So, I like this passage - maybe I’ll try and be a lot less judgemental and a wee bit more open-minded.

Here’s the passage:

1-2 So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

Specks of sawdust

“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”
Mother Teresa

I had quite a few ideas for this posting – until I heard a fantastic sermon on sexuality. Karl Martin of Morningside Baptist Church admitted that it is one of the hardest sermons that he has ever delivered. His handling of the subject was sensitive and insightful - I congratulate him. If only other ministers could approach such awkward subjects with the same degree of diligence.

As a Christian I believe that we have to grapple with subjects that we’d probably rather not deal with. Or rather, we’d rather not deal with the complexity that lies behind them. We seem to be quite happy to trot out glib, judgmental sound bites – which usually make us seem harsh and uncaring. But it’s not exactly following the example of Jesus, is it?

We must be capable of explaining the rationale for our positions, recognising that we are frail and sinful beings ourselves, and this brings me to the crux of the matter – integrity. If we are to connect with people, and influence their behaviour, we must behave with integrity. First we need to understand people not judge them, we need to love and not shun. We need to model our words and behaviour on those of Jesus.

Sadly we seldom do so – we prefer to judge from afar, and even worse – we are vocal in our condemnation of certain sins. These are usually sexual in nature, and in evangelical churches homosexuality is a big favourite. (What would Freud think!) I don’t remember hearing too many sermons denouncing Internet porn, or domestic abuse/neglect, or even theft/ tax fiddling.

Finally, I was astonished to find that some of the conservative evangelicals in the US have criticised some of their fellow evangelicals, because they have raised the issue of global warming. The reason for the criticism is apparently that it will distract from their focus on gay rights and abortion!

I will close now before this turns into a complete rant.

“Understanding a person does not mean condoning; it only means that one does not accuse him as if one were God or a judge placed above him.”
Erich Fromm