I'm Sorry I was Judgy

Newsflash: I still am.

Photo by name_ gravity on Unsplash

Last week, I read Recovery: The Great Leveler by

Nan Tepper

. Among other things, it’s about how the narrator went to a 12-step recovery meeting, but wasn’t quite ready to heal. Sometime later, she attended another meeting and realized that part of her problem from the earlier meeting were her own feelings of judgment and prejudice.

She writes, “As a snobby New Yorker, I didn’t want to be in a meeting with people who might have voted for the other guy, or were Bible-thumpers or racists. I wanted to be in a space where everyone agreed with me.”

The day after I read those words, I logged onto White Women: Answer the Call 2024.

One of the first speakers was

Andrea Gibson

, Poet Laureate of Colorado.

Andrea talked about the same judginess Nan Tepper spoke of. But instead of a 12-step recovery meeting, Andrea’s group was in a chemo infusion room.

Here’s part of what she said:

In this political climate, it is really easy to know what we’re against, but it is so vital right now for each of us to know what we are for. What we are for is such an expansive, creative, and empowering conversation. I know this is going to irk some people, but when I speak of how connected we are, I also mean we are connected to those whom we might perceive as enemies.

Right now, I am living with an incurable cancer diagnosis. I’ve been doing chemotherapy almost nonstop for the last three years, and the chemo infusion room is a place where people are fighting for their lives. When I am there, I am passionately rooting for everyone to survive. I feel deeply connected to each person in that room, and sometimes those people are wearing MAGA hats.

What I am for is actively hunting out the parts of myself that are also misguided, that are also not seeing clearly because of my privilege.

What I am for is remembering our compassionate nature, feeling the roots that connect us all. Living beyond ourselves and caring beyond our own lifespans.

What I am for is feeling everything we have to feel to keep our spirits awake for this moment, this incredible moment where we have an opportunity to elect our first woman president, a seed of change to help bloom a more beautiful future.

I saw and heard these messages in such a short time-frame that I believed they were specifically for me. While I know that’s not true—they’re for us all—they made me realize something about myself. Something tough to admit.

I began writing these posts about a month ago. This is a place I can share stories about my mother and my exit from religion, and a place to discuss writing about trauma as I wrap up revisions on the memoir it’s taken me nearly a decade to write.

But I’m noticing something in me that makes me cringe. Maybe you’ve seen it, too. Maybe it’s spilled out onto the page or maybe I’ve shared it in Notes.

It’s my own judgment. My own prejudice.

I used to whisper with church people about those who’d left Christianity. Heretics, we called them. We pitied them, but we also felt superior to them.

I imagine now I’m the one being whispered about. But that doesn’t matter.

What matters is that I’m still whispering.

Now I’m on the other side, and although I’ve rebuilt my life and community, and written a book about the process, I often seethe with judgment—toward the people at my old churches, and toward religious people throughout the world.

The lesson? “It’s not about other people,” Nan Tepper says. “It’s about me and my recovery.”

It’s not about the church people. It’s about my own healing.

When I opened my eyes and began to see the truth, several liberal-minded people befriended me and helped me through the doorway of awareness. I still struggled with a myopic view of people and how things should be, but my new friends met me where I was. They had compassion. They saw the roots that connect us all.

I want to fight for injustice, but at the same time, I want to be kind.

Like Nan and Andrea, this is what I am for: hope and healing, open-mindedness and forgiveness, actively hunting out the parts of myself that are also misguided, that are also not seeing clearly because of my privilege; remembering our compassionate nature, feeling the roots that connect us all. Living beyond ourselves and caring beyond our own lifespans.

In spite of the grace and acceptance shown to me, I swapped one prejudice for another. It made me feel self-righteous.

But I want to do better.

I’m still learning.

Thank you for teaching me. Thank you for learning with me.

Some Beautiful Things

All Rise by

Ally Hamilton

This is the Look of a Joyful Woman by

Rona Maynard

Secret Scars by

Jamal Robinson

How about you?

Do you ever cringe at your own self-righteousness?

Do you write about it?

What are you learning?

xoxo