Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye
and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?
—Matthew 7:3
It doesn’t require the intelligence of a turnip to see the faults of the person sitting across the table, at the next desk, or in the pew across the aisle.
No unique insight or spiritual gift is needed to pump up our self-image by magnifying the flaws of others.
Judging others is misdirected and ineffective since our opinion has no power to change them. Better to use that insight on ourselves, the only place it has reshaping power.
The important questions don’t take aim at others (“God, I thank you that I am not like other people”–Lk 18:11), but at self: What kind of person am I? How easy am I to live with? How considerate? How tolerant? How loving?
Seeing the flaws of others doesn’t make me a saint.