Courageous Truth

Once upon a time, there was a girl. The girl had a loving family who took very good care of her.
When the girl began Kindergarten, she was nervous like most Kindergarteners. She cried when she had to leave her mother, uncertain of being separated from her mom’s love. Other kids cried, too—no big deal—until one day of crying led to a week led to a month led to many more months of deep struggle in school.

There were many opinions as to what to do about the little girl’s anxiety. Most opinions centered around the notion that the girl’s loving family was being too protective. Cut the strings. Walk away. She’ll stop crying eventually. She has to grow up sometime.

One night as the little girl was taking a bath and her mom was talking to her about places where it is and is not appropriate for people to touch, the little girl casually mentioned, “No one has touched me there this year.”

This year.

But someone had touched her the previous year. A peer. A young boy. Not in her family. But someone nonetheless. And it had scared her. It had made her feel vulnerable and insecure. And it made her not certain who outside her family she could trust. It had made her feel unsafe. And it made her not want to go to school.

Thankfully, this story has a happy ending. Once the little girl told the story of what had happened to her, and once her family got her into counseling to help her work through the issues tied to the incident, she stopped crying every day when it came time to go to school. She stopped clinging to her mom’s hand and began to have the courage to walk to class alone. She began to smile more and she began to talk.

She had told the truth. And the truth had set her free.

I recently had a deep theological conversation with a friend. As we moved from one hot topic to the next, we landed on the topic of coming out. For most, the phrase “coming out” is almost exclusively tied to the process of identifying as gay/lesbian/transgendered; but for others, the phrase “coming out” has come to be associated with a process that occurs many times over the course of one’s life. The friend that I was talking to in this conversation—a woman who had been called into ministry—had had to come out of the women in ministry closet. Another friend has had to come out of the atheist closet. Another friend has had to come out of the not-called-to-be-what-her-parents-wanted-her-to-be closet. Another friend has had to come out of a political closet. Other friends have come out of other closets. And in every instance, the process has been similar: recognition of thought or feeling, exploration, questioning, doubt, struggle, fear of rejection, declaration, and acceptance (though not always in this particular order and not at all linear in sequence). [Do you know what’s interesting about this? These are also the stages of faith development.]

If I may be so bold, then I am going to suggest, dear friends, that each of us has a closet from which we need to escape. Some of us may have a whole house of them. Like the girl who began this post, your closet could be a closet of abuse and that abuse is big and real and scary and paralyzing. Or maybe your closet is financial ruin or medical insecurity or theological doubt or political anger or helpless sadness or wanting to be seen or admission of imperfection or maybe even sexual orientation. Maybe you’ve just gone into your closet or maybe you’ve been hiding your whole life. I don’t know. But what I do know is this:

When we have the courage to speak our truth in love, and when we have the courage to hear others’ truth in love, then the truth will set us free.

I’m not talking about spewing moral absolutes and fighting ‘sin’ with right and wrong. I’m talking about courageously, honestly, openly, and vulnerably risking to share parts our story—our truths—with one another in common humanity. I’m talking about fighting fear, separation, and otherness with words and dialogue—however difficult and humbling they may be. I’m talking about discussing which zones are safe and doing something proactive when we realize that safety has been breached. I’m talking about bunkering down, getting into trust-fall position, and holding one another’s pain. Because this world shouldn’t be a closet. And kids shouldn’t fear going to school. And humanity should never be us against them...

Shameful Failure, Beautiful Success

Have you ever had one of those moments when you knew that you should stop talking, yet you kept speaking anyway?

That is exactly what happened to me during one of my fourth grade classes two weeks ago. Partly due the class itself, partly due to it being on a Friday afternoon, I have struggled with this class since the beginning of the year.

I’m not sure why, but one particular student in the class has made it her goal to be as mean as possible in my classroom. I don’t know if I offended her, made her mad, bored her, or what, but she has had a terrible attitude in music class since day one, and it has made teaching the rest of the class very difficult. The eye rolls, the neck slides, the malicious smirks, the mean comments, the obvious desire to stir up trouble—all of it together equals a disrespectful attitude that gets under my skin and irritates me by its very existence. What’s worse? This student knows exactly what she’s doing and thinks it funny. Give me genuine learning or behavior difficulties all day long. I can be patient with those. But intentional disrespect and hurtful choices? That is my limit.

And so…the class walks in and her eyes start rolling and her grins start forming and her comments start flying and seven or eight students start arguing because of the trouble she is stirring up and…well…I lose it.

I look at her, open my mouth, start speaking, and all of my raw emotions toward the disrespect come flying out. In short, I remind her that she hasn’t been in my classroom for the past few weeks and tell her that the class has behaved better without her; therefore, their poor behavior must have something to do with her. While speaking, I’m thinking, “You don’t need to be saying this in front of the whole class. This could make her feel that the class is better off without her. And that’s a bad feeling. Each person is important. Even the difficult ones—even her. Each person needs to be here. Talk to her privately. Stop talking now.” And yet. Everything I had been holding in continued to come out.

The sad thing? She just looked at me, smirked, and agreed with what I was saying as if she were proud to be the source of trouble; meanwhile, the rest of the class was so loud that they didn’t even hear me.

While I knew that what I’d said wasn’t the worst thing I could have said, I felt horrible for saying it. I also felt horrible that I lost my patience so publically. All weekend, I thought about my poor behavior and wanted nothing more than to apologize to this student.

Monday was such a busy day that I didn’t think about anything but morning announcements, teaching, and Harnett Off-Broadway. But on Tuesday, after morning announcements, I saw this student in the hallway and decided that that moment was the moment. I walked up to her while she waited on her class to finish its bathroom break and calmly and repentantly said:

“Hey…Look at me, okay?”
She looked at me with her disrespectful smirk, defensive, as if she were expecting me to fuss at her.
Gently placing my hand on her shoulder and looking her in the eyes, I said, “I was really mean to you on Friday, and I’m sorry.”
Still smirking, but not as much as before, clearly not remembering the moment of my transgression, she responded, “What did you say to me on Friday?”
Not wanting to rehash the moment of shame, I ignored the question and said, “You have a really bad attitude when you come into my classroom. You know that, right?”
She said, “Yes.”
I said, “Do you think you can stop?”
A little shocked, she quietly said, “Yes.”
I said, “Good. I’m glad. But I was really mean to you on Friday, and I want you to know that I’m really sorry. Okay?”
Stunned silent and deeply confused, smirk completely faded away, she said, “Okay.”
I said, “Okay,” patted her on the shoulder, wished her a good day, and walked away.

Guess who had a slightly different attitude in music class this past Friday.
Guess who didn’t smirk at me or intentionally try to aggravate me.
Guess who didn’t cause as much trouble with her classmates.
Guess how long it will last.

Your guess is as good as mine on the latter. It may not last for more than last Friday for all I know. But for one moment, of one week, of one fairly tough year, something went right. And though the entire rest of the class period was a failure, I count that something with her a success.

I could be wrong, but I have a feeling that the student about whom I’ve been speaking had never had an adult directly and sincerely apologize to her until that moment in the hallway last week. I’m sure she’s had adults yell at her time and time again—tell her she could do better—tell her what she’s done wrong—tell her how she could improve. But I’m not sure she’d ever had an adult show genuine vulnerability after making a mistake…and sometimes vulnerability changes things. So while it was difficult—apologizing is often difficult because it means admitting some type of failure—I know that it was right. And I know, now, that sometimes shameful failure can be turned to beautiful success.