Angel's Landing

There is a striking rock formation in Zion's National Park called "Angel's Landing".  It is thought that it is so-called because an early explorer, Methodist clergyman Frederick Vining Fisher, thought that "only an angel could land on it". Today, though the path has steep and dangerous spots, it is daily climbed by many.

Perhaps there are parallels in our lives considering the limitations we live with and the judgments we pronounce.

For instance, sometimes we see something that looks so difficult, even impossible, that we declare it so, not realizing that it is, in fact, quite doable.

At other times, we may come across an experience that seems the supreme paradigm of the gall of bitterness, only to later find sweetness and joy in it.

Perhaps at other times we look at someone and in a glance, or after a brief conversation, we have them figured out, we have them pegged.  We know who they are, what animates them, what their problems are, and most importantly, what our problems are not. We become an expert on them.  Ironically, perhaps, we often insist that others don't understand our situation or circumstances.

All of us make decisions and judgments many times each day.  I'm not suggesting that we refrain from making decisions or judgments, or that first impressions are always (or even often) wrong, but I am suggesting that at times, our first impressions, about trials, or people, including ourselves, can be incorrect.  We should consider the limitations with which we judge and be open to the dynamic nature of human existence.  We should be open to the idea that what we see as impossible is, in fact, possible, or that the person who seems so distasteful, narrow-minded, arrogant, or problematic is, in fact, a kinsman, a spiritual brother or sister who, despite initial impressions, shares much in common with us.  Or that the person who seems so hopelessly lost in a prison of their own making really can change.

In other words, we should approach what judgments we must make with a good measure of humility, compassion, sensitivity, and even tentativeness, realizing that our preliminary judgments, necessary or unavoidable they may be, are limited by so many factors, and are subject to change.