90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 58, part 2

Judgments and Negativity

It’s good to have friends who know you, know your history and don’t let you get away with any shit. Revel is one of those friends for me.  We’ve paddled together since 1996 and he knows where the bodies are buried.  He began a conversation complaining about, well, whatever it was today. When I reminded him that I was on a 90 Day No Negativity Challenge and could use his support  he changed the subject……to my love life. Damn, I should have let him complain.  The good thing is that I got to retell some stories without blaming or condemning.   Telling our stories is important. The stories we tell and how we tell them reveal much about our inner life and what we value.  Revel was good about listening until it came down to the reason why I have mainly dated younger men instead of men my age.  I tried being honest and not defensive but, he wasn’t buying it. “Yeah, sure Deb, whatever you say.”   We were carrying our boats to the put in when I said, “I’ll tell you why I like younger men. They carry my boat!”  That might have been the wrong thing to say.   Revel, put down his boat, looked me square in the face and said, “Before you say anything else, let me remind you that you are on a no negativity challenge.” Double damn!  I wasn’t really going to complain about men my age, at least that wasn’t my intention, and it wasn’t a reflection on him. For the record, Revel does carry my boat and so does every one else.  I can carry my boat. I do carry my boat. Just not very often, because, often as not there is a young guy around who offers to carry it for me and I am not a brain dead moron who will turn down help.  Besides, my boat is heavy.  I know that I sound a little defensive and a whole lot spoiled and both are true but back to the story. I shut right up, throttled back and regrouped.

Judgments, like the ones I’ve made about men my age in the not so distant past are strong opinions. They are opinions the obscure the truth of innocence and strengthen opinions. Round and round and round it goes, an endless cycle of condemnation disguised as insight.  Underlying most opinions is a belief that someone or something should be different. There is a lack of acceptance. Hell and damn!    A Course In Miracles says that no one can judge because we only ever have partial evidence. We never know that whole story. I tell young teachers all the time that you never know what a soul has in store for itself. Perhaps it’s also true that we never really know a soul. We for sure can never know a soul as long as we are busying condemning it with judgments. That thought just breaks my heart.

I started with George and Revel, older men who I adore and went from there. When I considered older men in my life without negative opinions or judgments an interesting thing happened. Without negativity my opinions and judgments fell away and I saw the men in my life that I had labeled as lacking whole and complete.  A brief glimpse to be sure but a brief glimpse is all it took to remind me that we are all, men and women both, whole and complete. We are part of the hot mess called humans.  We are all part of the glory of God.   And I am very, very thankful that the glory of God includes young and old kayakers who carry my boat for me.