So why do you pay attention to the speck in your brother’s eye, while you have a log in your eye,
and are not conscious of it? How can you say to your neighbor, ‘Friend, let me take this speck
out of your eye,’ when you can’t remove the log in your own? You hypocrite! First remove the log
from your own eye, and then you will see clearly enough to remove the speck from your neighbor’s
eye.
Reflect:
In 1955 psychologists Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham together created the “Johari Window”
concept which maps how much we and others know of ourselves. Of the four quadrants of this
window of awareness is the “blind spot”— that part of our self known to others but unknown to
us. Jesus today speaks about how judgmental of others we are, while remaining happily oblivious
to our own blind spots. A sign of human maturity is the growing awareness of one’s own blind
spots. Such awareness leads to a deeper knowledge of oneself and a greater compassion for
others, for we would have known by then that as human beings, we are more similar than
different in our blind spots. We may still attempt to offer corrections, but in private, respectfully and
fraternally, and without disgracing the other. And, if the other still persists in his or her blind spots,
we will also know how to bear one another’s burden and thus fulfill the law of
Christ (cf. Gal 6:2).
© Copyright Bible Diary 2022