The Gift of Being Wrong

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One of my greatest gifts in life has been learning how wrong I can be.

I grew up thinking I was “right,” meaning I was a good Christian girl, who knew God, and could check all the boxes, even the ones that most people in the church truly did not expect you to check. I didn’t curse, wasn’t having sex, could recite all the books of the Bible and the Lord’s prayer, was focused on my studies, served in multiple ministries and had no problem speaking about God or the Bible in front of others. I remember a Pastor asking me what was different about me that I was so focused on God in a way that was unique to my peers.

In college, I was the President of the Gospel Choir and the black students bible study on campus. Then, I spent 10 years in college ministry. Most of that time, I was still pretty content in my self-righteousness.

But a couple things happened internally that started to shift that:

1) The Spirit was teaching me to let go of my agendas with people and to see what it was doing - and it was always different than what I would expect.

2) I lived in black communities in Chicago in which the Spirit led me to walk around and talk to and pray for my neighbors. In doing so, I began to realize that a lot of the personal and communal crises I was seeing were a result of systems far beyond what any of us could resolve as individuals.

3) Finally, I became more communally involved (in a city that has a history of organizing) and as a result was working alongside and learning from people who I otherwise had not be in proximity to as a middle-class Southern black woman. People whose lives were intertwined with the carceral system of the United States, trans, queer, and non-binary community organizers of color, to name a few.

I grew up inside a black church bubble that professed views on gender and sexuality that would be deemed conservative. And those views were reinforced by the evangelical ministry I worked for.

Yet, toward the end of my time in ministry, I remember the Spirit specifically telling me to go sit and listen to queer and trans organizers of color, to set aside what I thought I knew, and to hold their stories as sacred.

I had been raised under respectability politics - taught what I could do at home versus out there among white people, taught either explicitly or implicitly that if I was smart, lady-like, Christian, polished, and respectful enough, I would be ok - separated from those black people deemed stupid, dangerous, or criminal - and spared. While I grew up aware of racism, aware that as a black person I would be treated as a second-class citizen, I was just taught that the burden was on me to survive it and rise above it.

As the Spirit was guiding me into new places, I met people who had been part of the carceral systems at the state and federal level both innocent and not. I had friends who were undocumented or had to engage with the immigration system daily. I met so many people for whom “the law” and policies put them in situations where it was not possible to live, often times intentionally so.

I saw things that, being the curious person I am, made me research the policies and history of the land I was on. I was surprised to be surprised at how constructed and enforced the suffering of people that I was attached to was. I was surprised that things were not overcome despite the deep deep faith and hope of people who were being violated and exploited, who had been actively working to change their situation for decades. I was surprised at how often Christianity was used to turn people against those with less systemic power, to shame them, and to put the responsibility on them to survive the violence of powerful systems with grace, all while those with power claimed the covering of Jesus and the Christian God.

And of course, this all connected to and clarified my own treatment as a black woman, as a descendant of people enslaved and brought to the U.S., as someone now making a poverty-level income.

For years, I kept learning that I didn’t know what I thought I knew about the Spirit, about the world, about people, about the systems that shape how we live together.

Toward the end of my time in ministry, I was fortunate to be able to take an educational sabbatical. I started a Master’s, which gave me a lot of time to go deeper and reflect. During this time I had a recurring vision. The vision mimicked Jesus ascending to the heavens, leaving the disciples staring into the sky. Except in my vision, I grabbed the hem of his robe to keep him from ascending! I sensed the Spirit saying to let go of his robe. But this went against what I’d been taught growing up. You don’t let go of Jesus.

I wrestled with and pondered this. I remembered the messenger coming to the disciples asking why they were looking at the sky, declaring that he was not there. Over time, it became clear that the ascension scene was an invitation to let go of who Jesus had been to me (and where), to go out in the world with uncertainty, and to be changed by what I found.

This is what the Spirit had been leading me toward. I would continue to be surprised by where I found people who actually sounded like, healed like, welcomed like, loved like Jesus and the Spirit - so often among people I’d been taught were wrong. I would be grieved about where I did not find it - in so many churches, and ministries, and institutions I was taught were good, or at least good enough.

I would also be grieved at the ways I had, in both my ignorance and genuine desire to please God, upheld beliefs, worldviews, and systems, that were harmful to others and to myself - physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

After the brunt of the grief, came anger. And for a little while, if I’m honest, this anger allowed me to take up a new standard of righteousness. Fortunately, I was connected to community organizers, justice workers, and friends who were people in the mess with others, often holding conflicting communities together in their heart. Not perfect, but very present.

Not only that, but the experience I’d already had of being wrong, lit the flame to my curiosity. I couldn’t unsee what I had now seen. But I was open to learn new things, particularly from those whose voices and stories have been historically silenced, including myself. And, honestly, I was connected to enough people who were willing to investigate until they got to the root of things.

I am still learning, and will be until I die. But I have started to notice some things: The things that I can say that I know, are not nonexistent, but they are fewer and deepening. The more I learn, the more questions I have. The more I seek clarity and alignment over performing “rightness”, the more I can be honest in my relationship with others and with the Spirit.

The pretense is not forever gone, but I am more aware of it and able to move toward the vulnerability that is persistently making itself known and the persistent voice that says: “You’re ok.” “You are loved.” “You can love in a way deeper than you’ve known.” “You can care for and protect yourself too.” “You have everything you need.” “You can be present to life in all of its wildness.” “You are as you are at this time. And you will be different tomorrow.”

It was when I met the sacred Spirit of life in places and people that I was taught were wrong that I truly realized how wrong I’d been about others, about the world, about God, even about myself.

And it opened wide the door to freedom.