Friday, 17 October 2025

The Rush to Judgement

In this week's episode of Desert Fathers in a Year (ab
out which I have written before), +Erik Varden reads the story of Isaac the Theban, who had judged a fellow monk. On returning to his cell, he found his way blocked by an angel, who rebuked him for judging, which is God's prerogative. Isaac of course repented. And the main point of the story is that we shouldn't judge others, and that when we fall, we should repent. 

But Bishop Varden, with his characteristic passing comment that adds so much, and reflects the depth of his own wisdom, adds: 'a penchant for judging in this way may remain with us even when we have made some progress in the spiritual life, when our eyes are open to behold God's angels.'

Which brought me up short. Why are my eyes not open to behold God's angels? Or to put it another way why is it that I could happily return to my cell having judged someone else, and thought no more about it. Why is my conscience so dulled? (For surely, conscience is another way that God's voice might speak to us in such a situation).

And I think the answer is that I am not sufficiently recollected, or living with ease (in Nancy Kline's terminology). Kline sees ease as a freedom from urgency (internal and external) and from interruptions (likewise, both internal and external). We keep ourselves so busy that we don't notice when we have casually passed judgement on someone. And knowing what we do about the Fundamental Attribution Error (that tendency to overemphasise a person's personality or character as the cause for their behaviour, while underestimating situational or environmental factors) our judgment is likely to be erroneous and unjust anyway.

+Varden goes on to say that my rush to judgment may well be an act of self-defense by means of attack, and cites another story, told by Dorotheus of Gaza in the 6th century, about three people who see a man standing on a street corner at night.  Each reaches a different conclusion about him: the first thinks he is about to do something lecherous; the second that he is a robber, and the third, that he is waiting for a friend to go and pray together. 

Projection, as we call it now, was clearly recognised back then.

So rather than rush to judgement, I need to slow down, and recognise what such an impulse to judge, and what the judgments I am inclined to make, tell me about myself. 

Or to put it another way, to slow down until I see the Angels.

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