On most days when I walk from the bus stop to work, I pick up trash along the way. I started doing this because after months of ignoring the trash that I walked past each day, I began to feel guilty that I wasn’t doing something about it. So, I started picking up trash. The guilt mostly went away, but it was replaced with two more challenges and possibly growth opportunities—all from just picking up trash.

First, a little background. Over the past couple of years, I’ve been dealing with a medical issue that made me pretty anal about cleanliness, especially with my hands and especially during the first year. I bought hundreds of sanitary disposable gloves to use when doing anything that involved handling stuff with bacteria. After several months, I relaxed a bit and shelved the gloves. I kept a box in my car for potential use, but otherwise forgot about them.

Also, I won’t go into it here, but suffice it to say that I have been regarding my medical issue as a wake-up call from God to be a better human being and steward of the world. As such, I started taking the bus to work, rather than driving my Gladiator. And I started to lose interest in doing things (like going on long trips) that impacted the environment more.

From the bus stop to my office, there was a healthy half-mile walk. At certain times of the year, I got to see the sunrise over a downtown skyline. Sometimes, these sunrises were breathtaking. During the winter, I mostly walked under street lights, but I never felt unsafe. In the summer (and spring and fall, depending upon when I took the bus), I could make the trek in full daylight. It was during those full-daylight walks that I noticed the trash along the way—on the sidewalks and nearby grass, along the curbs, in a large public parking lot, and right next to public garbage cans.

I deal with my medical issue about five times a day, often not long after I get to the office in the early morning. So, when I first contemplated picking up garbage, I immediately dismissed the idea because it could further increase my chances of getting an infection (which is bad for a number of reasons, including enduring some pretty extreme pain). I actually convinced myself that through my medical condition I was uniquely disqualified from picking up the trash. But something didn’t seem right about this, and then I realized that I had all those gloves.

Then a possibility came to mind that I haven’t been able to shake since: what if the main purpose (or perhaps one of several purposes) of my medical condition was so that I would buy gloves that eventually I wouldn’t need, but would enable me to pick up trash in a safe way on my way to work? Having listened to many Bible Project podcasts about the ever-humbling, upside-down world that Jesus says we should embrace, I had to acknowledge that this was entirely possible. And so, one morning when I got off the bus at my stop, I donned a pair of sanitary gloves, shook open a leaf bag, and picked up trash on my walk to work.

The first few times that I picked up trash, the main feeling that I had was a little embarrassment. I was somewhat well-dressed (with a white shirt and tie) and doing work that mild wrongdoers sentenced to community service might do. So, I was a little self-conscious and just tried to get the job done as quickly as possible. As uncomfortable as I felt, it seemed like a good exercise in humility.

But then some negative thoughts started creeping in. When I picked up a discarded food container, I would think, I can’t believe that this person just dumped this container here. When I picked up a broken bottle of liquor, I would think, Now why did they have to smash this bottle? And when there was trash a few feet from the garbage can, Seriously, you couldn’t walk a few feet?! That is to say, judgment crept in. And over time, I let that judgment fully occupy my thoughts because it helped me to forget about the embarrassment and it gave me some energy (albeit negative) to get the job done more quickly.

It took quite some time for me to realize that I had been handed a multi-layered challenge and that I had not successfully handled my assignment. Negative judgment of others is one of those things that can cause you to unravel. It can fill you with frustration, anger, impatience, an inability to show mercy or to forgive, and irrational behavior. It can keep you from loving and serving others. And it can completely undermine attempts to develop humility in your life. Think about it: when you negatively judge others, you are putting those other people lower than you are—effectively lifting yourself up at their expense.

I’m not sure when I realized what I had been doing while picking up the trash. It could have been after listening to a podcast on judging others, or it may have just hit me. I had also been listening to some Audible lectures on eastern religions, so there could have been a little inspiration from Buddhism here, too. Either way, I finally realized that my task was to pick up the trash, allow myself to feel a little humility, and quiet my mind from judgment of others during the process. And who knows? Perhaps there is yet another challenge in picking up the trash yet to be discovered.