“For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart”
1 Samuel 16:7 (ESV)
Scurrying along the sidewalk on a dark night, we might ask, “Does this guy walking past me look like the kind of person who would pull a knife?” When sitting down for a 4 hour flight we may ponder, “Will my new seat-mate be respectful of my space and privacy or do I need to pretend to be asleep?” Our brains are (wisely) judgment machines. These pink, fleshy prediction engines keep us safe as we travel through the world. We cannot escape everyday life from the necessity of judgment.
Yet I would like us to pause for a moment and reflect about the methods we often use to judge people. In most cases, the externals reign. What I find interesting is that we mostly only have access to the “outside” of a person but what we really want to know is what is going on their insides. As above, this tends to be for short-term, pragmatic reasons; can I trust them, am I safe, are they worth having around?
When sizing up other humans we tend to seek information by assessing their externals:
How do they look?
What do they say?
What have we heard about them?
These are all surfacy data points, but we seek them in order to make a judgement about the sort of person they might be to us. We don’t have the divine power needed to peer into one’s soul, so we make deductions based on the evidence we have, even if it is poor evidence. This reality of human judgement leads to a pretty lame fact:
Fat people will be judged.
It doesn’t actually matter why or how you got fat. When you carry an excessive amount of adipose tissue (your outward appearance) people will correlate that with sort of person you must be (your heart or character). In Western society, fatness is usually taken as a sign that you suffer from some kind of character flaw, possibly lazy-streak, a lack of self-control, or an orientation toward chronic self-indulgence. Of course this is a culturally mediated belief (fun fact: I once went out on a date with a woman from Sudan who found my excess pounds extremely attractive because in her culture my girth was considered a sign of prosperity and power).
In spite of the cherished narratives about “the cause” of obesity, sometimes people become obese for reasons unrelated to “poor character”. I knew a woman of normal weight who was well-regarded within the church. She was known for her faith was held in high regard. A few years ago she was tragically diagnosed with terminal cancer and because of the toxic cocktail of medications the doctors gave her as they vainly tried to save her life she gained about 100 pounds. I recall seeing her speak after her massive size increase. Although I knew that her obesity occurred through absolutely no fault of her own, I found that I began judging some of her mannerisms. I esteemed her less. I quickly caught myself doing this and I realized that I was holding her in judgment for her appearance alone! And this was as an historically obese person myself!
One would think that as a long-time person of size, I would cut heavy people some slack. I mean, am I not just judging myself if I judge the hefty humans around me (Matthew 7:1)? As I ponder my own attitudes, I have realized that it is actually the other way around and that when I judge others I AM judging myself:
When I judge your fatness I am hating the thing I see in myself.
Yet it is so much less emotionally painful to hate and condemn you for your fatness than to consciously hate my own. The truth is that I have quietly but resolutely judged myself, but you are the object on which I project my disdain.
Believe it or not, this is fantastic news. This reveals that not only am I not actually judging other obese people, but it also reveals one other thing: that I am erroneously projecting the idea that the rest of the world holds those judgmental attitudes as well. I assume in error that the people around me are judging me and other fat people, and perhaps some are. Yet I would imagine that in reality most are actually are good people who don’t really care about my weight.
And likely God doesn’t care either. At least not in the way that we do. God cares about the heart.
So yes, I am head-case. That’s the point of this blog entry. Please permit me to provide one other piece of evidence that convinces me these projections are true. After I lost 100 pounds, my judgment for obese others did not increase, but it decreased. Why? Because I was no longer threatened that those people might be human mirrors, placed in my path by God to accuse and convict me of my corpulent transgressions. I no longer hated what I saw in myself because fatness no longer existed in myself!
Let me say in conclusion that I am not suggesting that obesity is a non-issue or that I am not called to take responsibility for my food behaviours. Read virtually any of my other blog posts and you will realize that this is not the case. What I am suggesting is that if you find that you hate something you see in another person, it might be a good idea to consider whether you are not just hating (or deeply insecure about) something within yourself. The bottom line is that this would be a sign that you have some work to do on your relationship with you. I know I do.