Jane Wharam on......

House Calls

Imagine you’re in your first home; the first one you’ve ever owned or feel is yours.  You invite special friends in and excitedly show them around.  I can remember opening cupboards, poking about under the stairs and even showing the cutlery drawer, so proud and thrilled as I was to be the Chatelaine of the tiny, two up, two down house that was our first home!  As we get older, we lose some of that excitement; maybe we become blasé after so many houses or maybe we haven’t got the time or the energy to show friends around when they come to call.  Then, occasionally, we meet someone we invite into our home and we want to give the full tour to but, to our dismay, they don’t want to see the cutlery drawer or the cupboard under the stairs.  They're polite, of course but they either don’t have the time or the inclination, so the tour never happens and all they see are the utilitarian parts, the sofa, dining table and kitchen. Maybe they’re so busy making sure that their own rooms are dust-free or locked that they aren’t interested in the rooms in our house at all.

 Isn’t that similar to how we get to know people as we get older?  When we were young, we would spend hours sitting and talking about ourselves and our dreams.  We showed each other almost every ‘room’ in the house of our soul and allowed the other person to wander freely, comment on our taste, compare colour schemes and generally explore.  Then, as we got older, little by little, areas were cordoned off, the house wasn’t redecorated as often as before and some rooms actually got forgotten.  To make it even more difficult, our new friends also had huge houses to maintain and  we never got to see anything of theirs except the most important living areas; the office, kitchen and sitting room.  What happened to their art collection, the fabulous garden and the waterbed?

 When I think of certain friends, I sometimes see myself as if in a museum.  I really want to be there but, as ever, I’m short of time. I’ve seen the entrance hall several times but generally raced through it and couldn’t pay too much attention and then, often,  I’m a corridor, which leads into a succession of rooms but most seem to be inaccessible. Sometimes I can just make out dust covers, some rooms are pitch black and I can’t find the light switch, no matter how hard I try and some areas are actually guarded by the owner standing in front of the door, arms crossed.  I want to say ‘I’ve got a room like that, why don’t we compare?’ or ‘please let me in there, I’m sure it would be beautiful with the light on.’ But the words won’t come out because I've been betrayed by people who've had the full tour myself. I know what it’s like to have my house ‘invaded’ and I’m afraid that, if I persist, I won’t be invited back.

 So, I make all the right, polite noises, stay within the cordoned off parts of the show areas and get out my own dust covers and keys. And I sit and wait for the next visitor. 

Judgment Day

A friend of mine said recently that he liked seeing me because he could be himself in my company.  Now that may sound slightly odd because, after all, it you’re not you, who are you?  And, of course, the answer is that you are still you all the time, but you’re often projecting a ‘socialised’ aspect of you that’s guarded, masked and wary.  This particular friend spends his life in the world of business and has to make small talk and be on his best behaviour with clients and his partner’s business associates.  What he appreciates with me is that he doesn’t have to worry about protocol or how he ‘should; behave; he knows that I won’t judge him for being ‘himself’ or making the odd social mistake.

 Ah, mistakes!  You know, those things you make all the time, from buying the chicken that’s cheaper but tastes of nothing, when you could have spent a bit more and really enjoyed the meal, to staying with the partner, even when you know it’s wrong, and will just delay and probably worsen the inevitable.  Or having too many at the party and being more 'exuberant' than usual. The thing is, we all make them, great or small, on a daily basis but a lot of us don’t realise that we do, as we’re too busy picking on the mistakes of others and judging them.

 My father used to have a lovely way of describing my mother; “there are only two infallible people in the world, your mother and the Pope, and she’s not so sure about him!’’  Jesus had a few words to say about judgment, when the mob had gathered to stone the adulteress to death  - ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone’.  But, in that story, no-one had the brass neck to carry on throwing. Unfortunately, in life, people on the moral high ground feel that they have the authority to cast with abandon and do so without let or hindrance.  And they are legion – you only have to look at the number of people who read the Daily Mail to realise that.

 So what makes people think that they have the right to stand in judgment of others?  Surprisingly, the common denominator is low self-esteem.  In EI terms we talk about ‘being more right than you’.  It’s a form of defence against being alone; after all, they’re now part of the mob with the stones and, of course, it uses up time; if they’re working themselves up into a moral frenzy, they can’t be examining their own soul and finding themselves wanting

All of which doesn’t mean that there aren’t moral parameters.  Of course no-one condones murder, abuse, theft or cruelty. As a society, we rightly have rules to help people without a moral compass stay within the guidelines or be punished  for transgressing them.  But, in our own micro societies of friends and family, which of us has the right to assume the role of judge and jury?  As Matthew puts it so beautifully, ‘why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own..?'

Now it may have crossed your mind, as it has mine, that by writing this I am judging those who judge and, of course, you’d be right.  I said at a workshop recently that, generally, people despise in others what they most dislike about themselves and I am prepared to admit that I can be judgmental in an instant.  The difference, I hope, between me and the person with the stones is that I now stop and examine myself first.  Is my friend's misdemeanour so bad?  Have I ever been guilty of something similar to the person I'm judging? Nine times out of ten, examination over, I sheepishly put down my stone and walk away or offer the hand of friendship and forgiveness.  I’m not perfect, so how can I expect anyone else to be?  Let them be their own judge.