A judgemental act against another person can injure you more than you might think, even if it is merely words said in casual conversation. Let alone the loud persecutorial clanging noises often made by the self-righteous, holier-than-thou assholes, tarnishing the name of my saviour, railing against others who are merely made differently.than them. 

As for me, I try to be the best I can to adopt the attitude of "those without sin, cast the first stone*, meaning no one is qualified to judge another person's genetic makeup ór shortcomings. We should aspire to first remove the plank in our own eye, before pointing out the splinter in another person's eye. Simple, basic Christian principles to live by. I thought of my conduct regarding this was at least at a passing grade, and I have coasted along thinking I couldn't be any less judgemental than I already am. 

But then, over the past couple of weeks, I have become a traumatised casualty to that injurious plank in my own eye, right after I made a passing remark pointing out a particular vice that a couple of my neighbours indulge in frequently. 

I am still bleeding in this proverbial eye, injured by my own sinful ocular plank, so much so that this injury I describe goes beyond the abstract or the philosophical — it is real-world in effect for me. I am hurt, and even as I write this, I am I have not yet staunched the bleeding from my injured eye. 

The only way to do so would be to humble myself before Him, asking for mercy and healing. I need to do so in order to get some help for my badly lacerated eye, because how how else can I see this bloody plank in my own eye? It obscures my vision, tears and blood blurring whatever partial vision I do have. One would need a Healer, someone to render first aid, to help me remove my sin-plank and and provide ocular wound care before I lose my vision entirely from this traumatic injury. A consequence which would definitely disqualify me from ever again accurately pointing out and from helping others to remove sharp wooden foreign objects in their own eyes. 

Trying to sort this out on my own would not be the best route through this bloody, painful mess. And this right here, I think, is the second truth to glean from this splinter-plank teaching of Jesus' . The depth of understanding we ought to attain from these verses in the Bible goes beyond the initial, top-most epidermis — that of acknowledgement; awareness that we have these sin-planks in our own eyes. Okay, so what then? These sharp foreign objects in our eyes injure us and obscure our vision, and the best way to get these offending shards of wood removed from our own eyes is if we ask someone for help, ideally someone who knows how to do so. Someone qualified; a healer (or nurse/doctor at the A&E). Planks removed, these eyes then need to be irrigated, flushing out whatever flecks of sawdust might still be within. After which, the resulting wounds in these eyes have to be tended to: because if you had such ridiculously large-sized pieces of wood in your eye, minimally this would cause irritation, if not inflammation, ulceration, or as I have described in this post, outright profuse bleeding. 

Father, I regret judging my friends for their gambling habits. This is the one vice I have always detested in others, primarily because of my parents. I may not gamble, but recently I had a taste of what a similar addiction would look like in me. As a result, I am now dead broke, and while I have trained myself to fast from my daily meal (I now only eat one meal a day) when necessary, and go without cigarettes (doable unless I have an anxiety crisis), I cannot not have money to use for transport for when I have to go to the hospital for my medical appointments. I still need money for medical supplies and such, money which has to now appear like manna, because I don't dare ask for more money from my parents so soon after they have recently given me large sums of it. I now know the feeling gambling addicts or alcoholics must feel when they have frivolously spent away money on their addictions and no longer have money to feed their families and so on. I have never lost control of my purse this much before, and it happened right after I pointed out my friends' gambling vice  

I understand addiction more now. And after understanding, I must go now humbly seek help from my Father for my own sinful behaviour and its financially disastrous consequences. Don't forget to do the same, friends. 

worlds upon words