JUDGE NOT LEST YE BE JUDGED.

Thursday morning is at the door. I cannot see it well yet as darkness still surrounds the house. But it is here, another day I am truly grateful for. I listen as the rain also makes itself known. A rainy Thursady morning. But that's okay, I love the rain.

I believe from small snatches of conversation I have heard from next door that they are burying the man who died today. For that fact I am sorry for the rain. It is never easy saying a final goodbye to a loved one. But something about a rainy, dreary day makes it seem worse. I hope the rain quits soon and sunshine follows.

I have realized the last days I have become guilty of the very thing I complain loud and long about others doing. That is making assumptions of people without really knowing them. Looking at them, at how I think they appear and judging them on appearances. I hate that when people treat me in that fashion. But to my horror I have found I have done that very thing myself.

When the folks next door moved in a few months ago, the Emperor said, "Good grief,"The Clampets." They were loud, noisy and the daughter at thirty-eight had ten children, eighteen and under. The kids always there, the man and woman always yelling and hollering at them. Oh wait a minute the hollering and yelling part sounds like The Emperor and I. Hmmm wonder if that is why the neighbors don't talk to us much. Food for thought.

But anyway I put together as I am sure others around did, a preconceived ideas of the family. Judged them I guess you would say. Older man and woman living together, the man drinking, the woman looking frowzy. Oh wait a minute that sort of sounds like the Emperor and I too. Except of course we're married. Now I know where the phrase ,"The pot calling the kettle black comes from." You sort of write them off in your mind as not being what I believe in their own way they are, A loving family.

As I sat on the porch yesterday, rocking in my new beloved chair. I heard bits of their conversation from their porch as they all wrote their tributes to this man they all knew and loved.

Him and her had been together twenty-two years. So that is the only Grandpa all those little kids knew. She talked of how they had laughed recently of how he had come to visit her and twenty-two years later he was still there. They had a life. They had loved and watched all the grandkids come into the world together. To the outside world they are noisy, hard living. Maybe we think too many kids. But they are a family. And I know without a doubt they love each other. Shame on me for having preconceived ideas about them.

I with the bleached, chopped off hair, Yelling at the gate at the Emperor, "Bye Finn, see you later." My Dad use to have a saying, "On again, off again, gone again Finnegan." I am always grouching because he runs so much. The neighbors probably have a lot of preconceived ideas about us too. But that still did not prevent me from doing the very same thing to others. We see someone and instantly decide what we think they are, who they are. Its not always the truth. It says in the Bible, "Judge not lest ye be judged." I need to remember that.

So I have rambled on in my usual Billye fashion, saying lots of words but really saying nothing. Today I will try to be kinder, more accepting of others. Trying to remember the world is judging me on outside appearances. I should try harder not to do the same thing. But for now. I'm outta here.