Am I Right, or am I Wrong

Many years ago, one of my closest friends said to me, “You just seem to have an opinion about everything!”

And I remember my reply: “How can you just not have an opinion on something?” (If this were a text, I’d be inserting the eye-rolling emoji here—directed at myself, for asking such an idiotic question.)

The fact that I remember this conversation so clearly these forty or so years later speaks to the impact it had on me.

I think it was the first time anyone had pointed out to me just how opinionated I was. Or, perhaps, the first time I’d taken it to heart. As I thought about it, I knew that it was true; for much of my life, I was never at a loss for finding my position on almost anything—big or small, trivial or important. Nor did I hesitate to share that position!

And not only that. I came to realize that I was a person who always needed to be right, which made me disrespectful of others’ ideas, and led me to be judgmental.

Not a particularly appealing combination of character traits! I’d like to blame it on having four siblings, all five of us competing for attention at any given moment. Or maybe it was the example set by my mom, who rarely contradicted my dad about anything, as if she had no opinions of her own.

But why I grew to be so fiercely assertive with my own ideas about things really doesn’t matter. I had to face the reality of those weaknesses in my life—let’s call it what it is, sin—and deal with them.

Now, you may have noticed that I used past tense in telling much of my story. I would like to say it’s because I am no longer any of those things. However—and I’m sure my husband would back me up on this!—I still often want to be right! And I can still be judgmental of others. But with God’s help, I’ve worked very hard on that, and I believe that we’ve made some progress.



Having read your way through this rather long confession of my shortcomings, you may be wondering what in the world this has to do with you, or our congregation, or our community. Or, for that matter, God.

Friend, it’s no secret that we live in extremely contentious times. There’s no shortage of opposing opinions, disrespect, and judgment of the “other.” In fact, it feels as if we’ve forgotten how to disagree with civility. And we Christians are certainly not immune to this.

Father Richard Rohr has written much about the western culture’s preoccupation with duality—seeing actions and beliefs in opposing terms, with no in-between. Things are either good or bad. People are right or wrong. Beliefs are true or false.

One problem with this kind of dual thinking is that it leads to exactly the attitudes and actions I’ve described…the need to be right (in opposition to others, who are clearly wrong!), to be disrespectful of the “other” (whoever that may be) and finally, to be judgmental about the choices or beliefs or actions of those others.

Doesn’t sound much like Jesus, does it? The one who said, “Let he who is without sin throw the first stone.” Who taught, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Who literally reached out his hands to the people on the margins, the “others”…the women, the desperate, the sick, the poor. Even the men who beat him, and nailed him to a cross.

As we move ever closer to the election in November, as we hear of the wars raging and the terrible suffering in other parts of the world, as we are bombarded daily with messages of dissention, disrespect and violence, how will we choose to respond?

Will we dig in our heels on our own opinions?

Will we demonize those on the “other side”?

Or will we find our way towards tolerance—not of the pain humans are inflicting on one another, nor of hate speech that leads to violence—let us never be tolerant of that! But tolerance of another’s right to believe and to speak their truths.

I will leave you with this statement, from Father Rohr’s book, A Spring Within Us:

Enlightened people [those who choose to know and follow Jesus, the Light of the world] do not need to be perfectly right; they know they cannot be, anyway, so they just try to be in right relationship. In other words, they try, above all else, to be loving.

May this be true for you, for me, and for any souls who are living into the all-encompassing, all-forgiving, perfect love of God.

Amen. 

Lou Ann