22nd June 2014

BEWARE OF BUILDING INVISIBLE WALLS
I remember once listening to a person who was clearly not a happy bunny. As he spoke, he produced a whole litany of all that was wrong in his life and the world. As I listened I was reminded of the story of a man who after serving a number of years in prison was moved to a new one.

This more modern prison was much more comfortable, but he was still stuck in the narrow confines of his cell. One day, for no real reason, except boredom, he fiddled with the handle of the cell door… and it opened! As he gazed at lock inside and out and observed the comings and goings of his fellow inmates, it suddenly dawned on him, that the door had never been locked! He had been imprisoning himself!

When we hear people being judgemental about people, we often quite rightly focus on the victims or the injustices of such language. What we fail to notice is the effect such negative attitudes can have on the person speaking.
Without realising, such people are doing something very similar to the man in the story. They run the risk of imprisoning themselves, not so much physically, but with their minds and hearts.
When we see the good in people it’s easy to be open and get on with others. But what happens if  we are someone who is quick to judge and condemn others; we are prejudged and intolerant? Or if we refuse to forgive people or won’t give others the benefit of the doubt?
Such a way of seeing others (the opposite of course of love), has the effect of cutting a person off from others. Not only are such attitudes unattractive to anyone who comes across them, but the person themselves is slowly but surely building an invisible wall that separates them from others. These walls may be invisible, but they are very real, because the result is that the person in question has become as lonely as anyone who sits in a prison cell.

Which is why that day listening to the person I thought of this particular story.