Monday, March 5, 2012

When Classes Clean my Windows

I hear the wooden door of 231 of the Richards Building close behind me as I leave yet another day of class. But was it just another day of class? Or did I let it change me a little bit, making it much more than "just another day," as if to say it was inconsequential? Because of the things I just heard, learned and felt in that class, am I going to do anything differently? Am I going to treat someone better or be better able to help? To everyone else the world seems the same now as it was two hours ago, but to me the world is so different than it was before I walked into that classroom.

Walking home I look around at all the other people walking, driving, talking, exercising, and rushing around me. I just wish that everyone on campus could go to the classes I go to and feel their paradigms shift by the moment, so that they, too, would be looking at the world in a whole new way.

I will never forget the feeling of walking around campus after a class and feeling like a whole new world has been revealed, wondering how I possibly lived without understanding what was recently taught to me or brought to my attention.  The feeling of leaving my international health class last fall and walking home at sunset, looking over a gleaming Utah lake and the beautiful BYU campus, with any pre-misconceptions about poverty blown out of my mind.

The feeling of walking out of my Old Testament class at the Jerusalem center and being re-converted, re-determined to always trust in God. The feeling of leaving my substance abuse class and knowing I could never look at an addict or alcoholic and think, "What a loser to keep on using drugs and not just quit. He's a hopeless case and will probably never succeed." Leaving my consumer health class and knowing I could never look at an overweight person and judge them.

Knowledge on these subjects has replaced any old judgements with complete compassion and empathy, and understanding. When you actually understand something, there is so much less room for judgement.

Letting your perspective be changed in class is like cleaning the windows you look through. Watch this:

 

3 comments:

  1. Judging people seems to come out of anger most times, at least for me. I always have to keep reminding myself not to judge people, I remind myself there is only one judge who can see all the angles. I keep getting into heated arguments with atheists on youtube. The things these atheists say make me so angry sometimes. I often judge them as hopeless, vile, ignorant and careless, but I only feel this way in my anger. After I calm down, I just remind myself that God's the one who will deal with them, not me.

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  2. Thank you for that comment, Cameron. I completely understand how frustrating it is when others don't see your point of view, but you are so right--only One can see all the angles. I need to remember that more myself.

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  3. I loved that story President Monson used. What a great parable of judgement, one that we've all been guilty of to some extent. Thanks for this reminder, as always, I appreciate it!

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