One of the things you learn on jury duty is that only relevant information is presented to jurors.  And someone else decides what constitutes relevant information.  This isn’t a problem for me (in THIS setting, but read on) because I tend to be of the “guilty until proven innocent” mindset.  Which isn’t such a good thing, in life, as it translates to a sweepingly judgmental attitude.  I am aware of this quality in myself, have been for awhile, and have recently even begun working on it with the help of my Becoming My Real Self Project Coordinator, guy by the name of JC.  But in a courtroom, a swift judgment can be quite efficient.  And when you’re just sentencing someone to a trial rather than the chair, it’s hard not to see it as a win-win.  Some of my fellow jurors, however, are not on that same page with me.  It took a few days for some of them to accept the fact that no matter how many questions they asked (I’m looking at YOU, A.Hole), they may never get the information they were seeking.  Usually this was information dealing with background details that would have been interesting to know (for example, why exactly the cops asked for a search warrant for that particular apartment) but were, as it turned out, none of our business.  I guess A.Hole is just going to have to live without knowing whether the knife-wielding perp on the subway is homeless. 

So we’re called to make a decision based on what we know, not on what we wish we knew.  On the information in front of us, not the unrevealed mysteries.  And at times that can seem unfair, even counterintuitive.  Until we admit that we make every one of life’s decisions–in a courtroom or not–under these conditions.  We just think we know it all.  But even on a good day, what we can see is a shadow of all the information that’s out there, past present and future.  And the one who has all the information?  Well in this illustration, our God: Courtroom Version is K, the warden.  She struts in every day with a smile, clicking the four-inch stiletto heels of her black leather knee-boots against the floor as she approaches us with the day’s schedule.  Her no-nonsense attitude calls to mind Roz on Night Court, just shorter and a little more svelte (as the tight knit dresses reveal).  Her hair is big, her lipstick is red, and even though she’s as friendly as can be, there’s a part of me that’s waiting for someone (I’m looking at you, A.Hole) to incite her to say that she doesn’t take shit off anyone.  Because I’m pretty sure she doesn’t.  After all, she’s been in the Special Narcotics Division awhile, and she knows how this all goes down.  Yet she remains patient while the rest of us stumble around a well-lit room with our eyes shut.

So this whole “limited information” thing is working for me.  It cuts down on wasted time and keeps me from getting confused.  Also, it gives me more time to read.  (I finished The Help last week–READ IT!!!–and have moved on to Elizabeth Gilbert’s latest, Committed, a gift from the Yankee Mom.)  So while wardens, assistant DAs, and witnesses gather outside and worry themselves with the details, I lean back in my leather-bound chair and relax with my book and occasional conversations with B and R.  Then I leave the courtroom and forget all about being okay with a partial view of the world.  Like when someone close gets bad news that is just completely not understandable.  And I am drawn back to my own similar experience, a time when I was told that “my services were no longer required.”  That moment still reverberates in my ears and heart as the dividing line between how I used to live and how I am oh-so-trying to live now.  The difference between letting others determine my worth…and believing in one who had already determined it.  Who had determined that my service was welcome but what really mattered was all that had already been done on my behalf.  All of which gives me the heart now to, first, admit how bad my vision can be; then, to decide be at peace with it.  Because sometimes being free means knowing less while someone else knows all.  Being still.  Relaxing in my seat and remembering that I will never again be the one on trial.