There are some idioms I've either heard or been using my whole life, and many of them I have grown to despise. "Never judge a book by its cover" is one of those idioms. I guess I loathe it because for me it kind of fits the same mold as "have your cake and eat it too." That makes no sense. Why would you have a cake if you weren't planning on eating it in the first place? Anyway, that's how I feel about judging books, but I'm not much of a reader anyway, so if the cover doesn't appeal to me, the book is probably going to stay on the shelf.
Now I know that there's a deeper meaning to this, and it's accurate. We do a lot of cover judging, practically every day. At least I know I do. But then something happens and you meet or get to know someone and they are nothing like what you judged them to be by their appearance or first impression. So this kind of changed for me a little bit last week.
Last Sunday (May 15), I got to ride around with Deputy Luke Ditta of the Harris County Sheriffs Department's Homeless Outreach Team (HOT). For those who may not know, Rachel Morgan came up with this idea to give homeless people free haircuts in our area. Leif Christiansen opened his hair studio and so many people from Bammel volunteered to make the day possible. 30 homeless people got their haircut and a hot meal, courtesy of donations from Freebird's and Chick Fil-A, as well as Ryan and Yvette from Grace Family Church. It was a great day. For me, it was an eye-opening experience, and one I desperately needed.
You see, riding around with Deputy Ditta did something for me that no amount of article or book reading could. We went around to different areas that outwardly looked vacant, but inside there were people just trying to survive. And Deputy Ditta had relationships with these folks. He treated them with respect, which is why they respected him. They don't get a lot of that on the streets. There was one situation where Deputy Ditta was standing over a couple guys sitting down in a parking lot and he was inviting them to come have some food and get a haircut. As I watched this, I realized that if I was just passing by, I would think he was threatening to arrest them if they didn't leave. After all, that's sort of what we're programmed to think. So there I was, guilty once again of cover judging.
Picking folks up and riding with them, I listened to them talk to Deputy Ditta and confess things to him, because they trusted him and knew he had their best interest at heart. I realized that all of us are a couple bad breaks from being homeless. I got to know some of these folks and hear their stories. Sure, some of them admitted that they drank or drugged themselves into their current situation. But some had just made poor choices financially or otherwise. Some had been broken by medical bills or family giving up on them or no one ever believing in them. Every "book" was different though the cover was much the same. The thing that I will take from that day the most is just having lunch with Chris or Terry or Clinton and talking about real life stuff, just normal conversation. I'll remember Christopher Nolan (yes, that's his real name) walking around after his haircut and hugging everyone in sight and weeping. And I realized that human beings everywhere have at least one chapter in common -- we all long to belong. We all want to be valued and be granted some dignity. At the end of the day, you look past the covers and that's who we are. We're all people struggling to be valued in a world that can often be cruel and callous.
So what this all comes down to is that I sometimes judge people without knowing a thing about their story. And most of the time when I judge people, I assume the worst. Jesus told us in Matthew 25 that whatever we do "for the least of my brothers and sisters" we do for him. Jesus was homeless. Jesus was perfect. I wonder if I would have gotten to know him or if I would have just filed him with all the other books. I will say this, I do way too much judging and not enough helping. John said, "God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him." (John 3:17 NLT). I pray that we have opportunity this week to grow and step out of our comfort zones and remember to look past the cover and see the person.
EP
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