When I am noticing the faults of others, when I am mentally blaming someone for any of my pet peeves: they don’t listen, they’re only interested in themselves and so on, it bores me to write of these worthless little tools…, but when I am engaged in this, it is only my way of defining myself as better than they are. I am setting them up to be the opposite of myself.

 

To say they are self-centered means I think I am not. To say they are inconsiderate means I think I am not. To say they are small means I think I am not. To say they are misguided means I think I am not.

 

 

But how can this be? Does my pointing out their failings, even if only to myself, make me better than those failings? Or does it turn me into a scold for observing them? After all, when you are engaging in battle with someone, you can be no more than at that level. Engaging in battle with. Not better than.

 

 

And is it really possible to attain to altruism, magnitude and perfect inward direction, by means of contact with their dull, paltry, mean opposites?  Do you learn to become altruistic by observing the failures of others? Do you learn to scale the heights by keeping your sight on the ground?

 

 

Of course not.  And this brings me back to my original false premise: that it is a worthwhile use of time to observe the faults of others. I must have thought it was to have spent so much time on it, but it turns out to have been false. Paying any attention at all to the faults of others is, after all, paying attention to faults. And why would you? Why would you deliberately keep your gaze trained on the ground?

 

Why do you notice the speck in your brother’s eye, but pay no attention to the plank in your own?

Matthew 7:3

 

How long have you been paying attention to the faults of others? And what has this been but an attempt to define yourself? Yes, you want to aspire to great and greater things, of course, but this is not done by dwelling on faults. If you want to see a situation more clearly, take the pronouns out of it. Dwelling on faults, yours or mine, is dwelling on faults.

 

 

 

Instead, take a moment to think what you might like your dwelling to be. Think of your dwelling as the ground of your being. And the background and foreground, the walls, the floor, everything that defines your life and being.

 

 

I would like the walls and floor of my dwelling to be peace. There is no more to wish for than peace. Peace both presupposes and paves the way for every other blessing: love, joy, comfort, security, ease of mind…none of these could exist where peace were not.

 

I have only to think of You with love