Live and let live

They matched her through the streets looking for the teacher. They sang and chanted shameful and humiliating lyrics. “She a whore! Shameless homewrecker! She is a whore! She deserves nothing but the stones!” They sang and off they pushed and pulled at her through the streets.

The crowd was growing now. Men looked at her with their bloodshot eyes. Women jeered and sneered at her. Some even spit at her. The children, well, she couldn’t even look at their innocent eyes. How could she?

She was a sinner. The filthiest of them all. She had given up her cookie to a married man. Oh, how shameful. To make it worse, the man’s wife had caught them in the act. She had yelled and screamed so loudly that she had passed out. Her loud alarming scream had nonetheless been enough to create the attention and hence the crowd.

To her surprise, here she was, alone. The man with whom she had been caught had been left behind, he was not condemned. Men will always be men, you know, polygamous and up to no good. They had let him go, for being a man. She sighed, now ashamed of herself. Oh the horniness that had driven her to even allow herself the desperation of being seduced by him. How had she allowed herself to stoop as low as giving it up to a married man?

“The teacher is with a crowd downtown!” one man shouted.

“Let us hurry before he moves to a different location!” another advised.

They pushed her towards the direction of the town hall. Her heart skipped beats with each step she took. It was certain now, the hour of her death drew new. What a disgraceful way to go to heaven, she thought as her head hung even lower.

“Move! Make way!” a man ordered “we have an adulterous woman here”

The crowd cheered and jeered even loud as they yelled unmentionables at her.

She was thrown to the ground at the feet of the teacher. The crowd was now still, calm and quiet.

“This woman teacher is an adulterer” one man accused. The crowd cheered in affirmation. “According to the laws of our land, she must be stoned to death. What do you say?” the man demanded.

The woman sobbed silently. She repented her sins. If this was it then she needed to repent in hopes that she would make it into heaven.

The teacher bent down and with his finger started writing on the ground. How weird! Amid all the fracas, he was scribbling things on the dirty. Who does that?

The crowd, now restless and begging for the woman’s blood, kept mounting pressure on the teacher to give his directive.

Then the teacher, without taking his eyes off the ground, said audibly “If there is one among you without sin, let him cast the first stone at this woman” He returned to scribbling on the ground.

There was striking silence among them. You’d have heard a pin drop.

One by one, she had stones being dropped. One by one, they left. Soon it was just him and the teacher left.

She could not stop the tears nor the wind of grace that swept through her. Yet, even now, she was still ashamed. She dared not look at him.

“Hey woman,” he said to her “Where are those who judged you?”

Then she looked up and saw no one there. “They have all left”

“Neither will I judge you,” he said standing up. “Now go and sin no more”.

The woman stood, stole one last look at Christ before running off.

Are you judgy much?

It is so easy and exciting to judge someone else while being vindictive to ourselves.

Isn’t it easy how we talk about murderers forgetting that we have killed many in our thoughts and wishes?

Isn’t it easy how we laugh at and make a mockery of prostitutes while we pull down our pants and raise the hems of our dress to fornicate?

Isn’t it easy how we talk about other peoples’ rowdy and unruly kids while we do have kids who are getting pregnant and aborting while still young, being expelled from school for organizing strikes and who spend time smoking bhang?

Isn’t it easy how we talk down upon the soul whose marriage failed and exclude them from our social groups while we go home to spouses we haven’t talked with or even gotten as much as a kiss from in months?

Isn’t it easy how we talk about that single mum, saying how she can’t keep a man, how she is a threat to marriage or even how her kid shouldn’t be allowed to play with our kids forgetting that we once aborted for fear of such condemnation, that our husband has a child out there and we are the obstacle between him and the child or that we too could be that single mother’s kid were it not that a man/woman chose to step in?

Isn’t it easy to play judge and jury when we are not on the spot?

Exercise some compassion. Be kind. And if only we could just learn to love, live and let live.

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Have a wonderful day.

Please reach out if you need legal services (including but limited to drafting contracts/agreements, website policies, terms and conditions, prenuptials and court papers including complaints, defenses, motions and appeals) legal consultations and a legal tutor through my email pearlonderi@gmail.com or on https://www.fiverr.com/pearlchloe