Have you ever been tempted to judge another person by their physical appearance? It’s not the best way to get to know that person, for there is so much more to see than the eye can reveal. But when a physical feature is unusual and glaring brightly in your eyes, it’s hard to ignore!
Learn what I did when gazing into a young man’s bright luminescent orange eyes that caught me totally by surprise.
This video was filmed in Snow Canyon State Park, in Utah, while hiking there in October of 2020.
Lovely lesson here for us Evan…thank you. It occurs to me that likewise I should make sure I’m presenting myself to others as a calm, happy , loving individual. Always accessible, considerate and looking for spiritual uplift in everything for everyone on a daily basis.
Don’t think the orange eye colour appeals…but I do like a bit of purple in my hair…sorry if I’m being a bit flippant for today’s spiritual uplift…blessings to all as ever.❣️
The expressions of being are infinite. They say no two snowflakes are ever the same. Everyone is different too. Ever one of us, an individual expression of God.
I didn’t remember to tell Rose yesterday the key statement of law which did the healing for my friend. That law is the commandment, Exodus 20:4 “Thou shall not make unto thee any graven image,”
The error was attaching an image of sickness to my friend instead of the perfect picture of health and uprightness. When the mental image was put into proper perspective healing was the result.
Physical sense must be corrected to attain the desired result. There is beauty and unseen grandeur in all of God’s expression.
My son’s cat, Ollie had orange hair. He raised Ollie from a newborn with an eye dropper of milk. How he loved his pet. When his cat was mature and was hurt, my son heard him scream 7 1/2 miles away. Ollie was just fine, but my son had to hurry home to comfort him.
Thank you for all the wonderful thoughts today Evan and our forum that you sponsor daily. You are indeed our “Shepherd”.
Thank you David, for the Exodus 20:4 reference that helped in the healing of your thought about your hospitalized friend. I did respond to your kind response to me in yesterday’s Spiritview, don’t know if you saw that. I mentioned that while praying about my friend I had been thinking of that very story of your friend’s healing, which you had kindly shared on SpiritView a few weeks or months ago, and I was going to search back to find it. You somehow connected to my thoughts and retold the healing yesterday, wonderful and very much appreciated.
Yes, it is like making a graven image of error and bowing down to worship it if we believe that what we see before us is anything but the full, untouched expression of God. It is our divine right to see that true image.
My love to Evan and all!
Totally agree Evan, but it can be hard to NOT see some things that you have always maybe judged people on. Then I remember Jesus said “Judge not or you will be judged” or something like that.
Thanks, Evan. A great lesson — one that I’m becoming increasingly aware of when confronted by people who don’t look like me: a different color or race, or perhaps very overweight, or appearing dirty and homeless, etc. But it great to know that those thoughts are NOT MY thoughts; they only seem to be mortal mind temptation’s suggestion to belief there are two creations, and to compare, belittle, and judge. But God loves those individuals just as much as He loves me, and they are created in the same image and likeness of the same God as I am. As the Bible asks, “Have we not all one Father? Hath not one God created us?” Not one single idea is left out. And therefore, I can’t leave anyone out of my love for God’s creation.
Well said Mike
How nice a commentary this is! When I was a child my Mom taught me to never stare at a person. That was a no no. I think it’s helped me keep away from reacting to the appearance of others no matter how strange sometimes. Orange is my favorite color BTW. Thank you for making the strong point to not judge outward appearances. We should not be impressed by them either. The inner man is the important thing. I love that.
Great illustration. Thanks. This covers any distracting “something”.
Wonderful! What a great opportunity to practice what we as Christian Scientists profess. “Man is Spiritual, not material.” “There is no substance in matter,” etc. I appreciate this topic, because I have been trying to challenge myself to unlearn the nonsense of people’s, including my own, body. To not see a small body or a big body, a tall or short body, a skinny or heavy body, old skin or new skin, long hair or short hair, a male or female body, etc. While this is a material example, it helps me to think of it in terms of flowers. I have seen some of the most teeny tiny flowers and then a whole range up to giant, huge flowers. Some are “fat” or “oddly shaped” some are colors I don’t like and some are colors I do like, but they are all beautiful expressions of God. I don’t ever think, “Wow, that flower is really “fat” or, “Wow, that flower is nice but it sure would be great if it was a little bit taller.”
What I love about Christian Science is that we can always do something to change a wrong human picture or anything we hear and I don’t mean do something or force something on a human level, but we can always challenge ourselves to think about it from a right spiritual perspective. I am in awe at the magnitude of power that gives us if we are willing to unlearn the unimportant and mesmerizing human knowledge.
Thank you Trista, your insights always touch my heart, I relate very much to what you said. Especially appreciating the joy in knowing that we are learning how to look at any person, place or thing, any situation, in it’s true spiritual light, that we don’t have to be tricked by error, and the wonderful freeing power in that.
Also enjoyed the flower analogy. I had to laugh imagining thinking a flower was too fat or too thin or a bad color, but we do this all the time toward people (and ourselves), shows how erroneous and ridiculous the temptations of error can be.
We are all like flowers in the garden of life, reflecting God’s individuality and perfection. How boring if we were all alike. Our individual expressions compliment each other like in a beautiful bouquet, when seen through the eyes of Love.
Mary Baker Eddy certainly has a LOT to say about the oh-so-limited and limiting
five physical senses!!
Spiritual Sense is where it’s at, as we are all learning!
;<)
Beautiful Insights ! ” Judge Not” a great reminder.
Thanks Evan 🙂
This is such a good lesson to take out into daily experience. Some years ago I was taking applications for a beautiful ocean view studio rental I have been so blessed to own. I met with each of the many applicants before making a final decision. One of them who I had enjoyed talking with on the phone drove up to the interview on a very loud motorcycle along with a friend. The friend was very tall, and her hair was so spiked it looked like 12″ cones all over her head. Very odd, and not the best first impression to physical sense. In fact, the gal was a bit frightening.! But in praying about who was God’s choice, I kept coming back to this one applicant in my thought, and I made the decision to rent to her. This was 9 years ago, and she is still happily living there. She has been the most wonderful tenant,- so respectful, helpful, and appreciative. Every month when her rent check arrives promptly in the mail, there is a note of gratitude along with it. She has been such a blessing. This to me has been a great life lesson to judge not! Thank you Evan for your insightful instructions to always look for God’s spiritual qualities in ourselves and our fellow man.
Thanks for this reminder to avoid judging by appearances! It’s always a good lesson. I’ve been working on this over the past year concerning people who are not wearing masks. It has been very difficult to resist the temptation to see them as inconsiderate, not following what Jesus said is the second most important commandment – love your neighbors. Although as a Christian Scientist I know there is nothing to fear, most others don’t – and it seems like such an easy thing to do, in order to help others feel safer! It seems like the most loving thing to do. And I can relate to your thoughts questioning why.
After an in-depth study of the Sermon on the Mount, I have been better able to resist that tendency, replacing judgment with affirmation that we are all God’s children. And, by the way – they may have been orange contact lenses rather than actually dyed eyes.
Ellen, like you I wrestled with much judgement towards those not wearing masks (it was made more challenging because at my job in a retail department store I often have to remind customers to keep their masks up).
I had to go deeper, to recognize that I have no business and no right to be mentally condemning others. That kind of thinking robbed me of my God-given peace, so I knew I was off track. More Love was required. Let go and Let God is a slogan from 12 step recovery programs about trusting the One we can always trust. It is wise advice.
Linda, I can certainly relate to your experience with the gal you rented to. I’ve had, in the past, a similar opinion of tatoos – especially very bold ones. Last year when I was in a Christian Science nursing facllity one of the most thoughtful nurses had bold tatoos on both arms. His love and cheerfulness were a constant.
Thank you, Everyone, for your shared insights and prayers. Thank you for reminding me of some lessons and blessings years ago when I saw some children and teens having fun in a park. I was surprised to see a family of African-Americans with naturally bright orange hair and freckles and green eyes with flecks and sparks of orange. I had expected they “should” have black hair and brown eyes, or that malnutrition resulted in their hair turning red/orange. I was wrong. Years later in Europe, I saw Swedes like my maternal grandfather with red orange hair and orange freckles, and green eyes with orange rays or flecks and sparks, but all the Irish-American relatives on my side and my husband’s side did not have red hair, but dark black-brown hair, usually no freckles, and many of our eyes have bits of orange more visible at different times. And decades later when I had a small private school, all of the children, African-American, Native American, and European-American had Irish-American ancestors, teaching me not to assume or judge appearances.
Thank you for the comments reminding us of Jesus’ and Mary Baker Eddy’s commands to judge not, less we be so judged. I have learned the hard way that whatever I am personally attached to believing about myself, whatever I take pride in, whatever I am defensive about being criticized, will be the object lessons for future life experiences giving me the opportunity to question and let go of, and correct and replace with more spiritual understanding. Most of my life I have been criticized for caring too much, being to analytical and too idealistic, too conscientious, working too hard, having too high of goals, being an over-achiever, being a type A personality, etc. etc, so that even a principal and other bosses told me to not try so hard or be so good because my colleagues felt intimidated while unwilling to perform so well or do so much. I thought they were too uncaring, lazy, self-justifying, socially irresponsible, unfair, etc. Then I married an abusive man who created all kinds of crises and I had high-need children then many diagnosed medically incurable, degenerative, disabling, prognoses to be soon fatal conditions, and others then judged me for being lazy with too low goals, as if by will power and hard courageous work along, I could overcome that all. Now I hope I am more patient, empathic, open-minded, gentle, forgiving, gracious, generous, practically helpful and more effective working for social justice and liberation for all, and forgiveness of those who preferred lies to Truth’s demands and Love’s abilities. And still I did not learn to judge not. Next, I could not understand why people who claimed to be Christian Scientists would brag about being addicted to caffeine, sugar, tv, etc, so I worried what could I possibly be made to be addicted to? I learned that some people I loved had become addicted to vomiting, which I never imagined anyone could be, and they were obviously self-disciplined, hard-working, high-achieving, smart, caring, successful, and they used will power and their best ability at prayer (the opposite of personal sense and ego will), yet they had years of hell trying to get free. I wish I had been more humble, less self-congratulatory, and cluelessly contemptuous, since I wasted years I could have been a better friend and better example of Christian Science to be more helpful to them.
And still I did not learn. I thought critically of whatever someone wrote through whatever media and format if I thought they made spelling, capitalization, punctuation, grammatical, etc. errors. But infinite Love is not done teaching me to be more compassionate. I now get to struggle with various iPhones and laptops that mess up my dictation, change the keystrokes, zealously Incorrect my words, etc. when I actually have my fingers on the correct keys, which is not consistent. My new-to-me iPhone X has “multiple touch issues” meaning what is called, downloaded, deleted, typed, dictated, etc. totally changes as if by some ghost. When will I learn to be more compassionately humble, daringly curious, patient, gentle, gracious, better-humored, flexible, ….. ? Your prayers are appreciated.
What a funny story with the orange eyes. But thanks dear Evan that you make a wonderful lesson of it!
I have a simple example. The girl friend of my nephew had artificially colored hair (pink, lilac, green etc) when they were not yet married. He loved her. And today they are married and have a little girl and a highly intelligent boy. She is a wonderful mother and a very lovely woman. I did not specially pray to see her as God’s child. But today it is obviously that she is a loved child of God. She studied Psychology of children. Meanwhile I gave Science and Health to her
an leave it to God that she read it.
Thank you Evan, your Vlog is so refreshing and is just what I needed – specially this Evening I felt it most. Am very grateful to you!
Am also very grateful for all the interesting and inspiring comments ♡
Wow! Evan, thanks for sharing your experience with the waiter–to be honest, I can’t even imagine “orange eyes”! But your and others’ comments really make the point that we cannot, and should not, judge others by any appearance they may present. Much gratitude for all the great comments!
Dear Evan, I just love your take on things…in this case drawing together the coincidence between the human and the divine! There is just and only ONE! So refreshing, your spiritual poise, maturity and expression.
Also, appreciate the entry by Edith. Such good lessons.
Today’s stories remind me of what my husband in Paris told me when I asked him how to see a French couple’s bathroom which had been decorated with aluminum foil for wallpaper! He immediately responded with, “Oh, that’s easy. Originality.” He had a gift for turning any situation into a positive good. He did not require glasses to see, and I truly believe exercising that spiritual vision preserved his eyesight.
Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgement. “ Christ Jesus
Love and gratitude to you, Evan, and all for today’s posting. It is so helpful to me! Xxoo
Thank you Evan for the example AND explanation of “Judge Not.” It is so helpful to have examples of how to put Jesus’s teachings into practice in our everyday living.
Thanks to the other contributions for the others.