Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places,

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ.

Christian.  Athletic.  Easy-going.

These were the three words listed next to my photograph in the College of Wooster’s Freshman Directory back in the fall of 1977, affectionately known at the “Baby Book.”  Little did I know that we would be saddled ever since with the words we chose to describe ourselves.

Christian was a positive word to me back then, before it was taken over to mean something very different than the faith I had experienced growing up.

Athletic.  Yes, it was a word that described well my life to that point, but it was also used with defiance against the cancer treatment I had just gone through the year before which altered my life.  It was a word that I hoped I could still be.

Easy-going.  Admittedly, two words with a hyphen, but they described what I hoped I was outwardly portraying despite the fear and anxiety I was feeling inside.  I had learned to cultivate this veneer so I would not let on to my family how hard having cancer was.  If I acted like everything was OK maybe that would allay the fears of others, and my own, and indeed make everything OK.

All these memories came back this week with a visit from an old college friend who reminded me of many classmates long forgotten, but whose words in the Baby Book brought back some hearty chuckles.  Like “I know where Patty Hearst is,” “I’m on my way,” “My boyfriend Peter.”  Fair enough.

Then Jesus’ words entered my mind, which often happens as I live each week with a particular scripture as I prepare for Sunday.  “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged.”  O, come now, Jesus, we’re just having fun remembering old college days.  “For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you get.”  Now, this is getting a little more serious.  Honestly, no harm done, right?  “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye.”  Ouch!  The image is painful and cringeworthy, by design.

Because judging others is painful and cringeworthy.  How many times do we judge others, the people we read about in the news, our elected officials, those standing up for what they believe, those people who have been dumped into categories and called names like illegals or homeless?  How we judge people who have different views than we do, who believe in a different God or who have no beliefs at all, who just try to make it through each day, who stand with signs on street corners and live under bridges?

They all have lives and feelings, loves and losses, worries and joys, like the rest of us.  It’s not our place, Jesus reminds us, to judge others.  We have no idea what people are going through or why they do what they do.

I have no idea how I was viewed with my three words. Did others know what was behind them?  Did they know how scared I had been?  Could anyone ever know me by three small words?

Maybe Baby Book was aptly named.  We all are vulnerable.  We all need love and understanding and a hand to hold. All of us need someone to clap when we learn to walk and not get too excited when we stumble, who withholds judgment, accepts who we are, and loves us into being.

Grace and peace, as our Lenten journey brings us closer to the cross,

Harry