Enter textAll my mistakes seem to be in front of large groups of people. Some time back, I was really excited about speaking to a group of 2000 college students at my alma mater. After extensive prep for my presentation, entitled “Madonna v. Bruce,” I found out about 15 minutes before speaking time that it was Grandparents’ Day and hundreds of grandparents would be in the audience as well. Why no one thought that was important to tell me, I’ll never know. I was so distracted by what I feared all those conservative grandparents would think about my presentation, and it threw me totally off. I couldn’t focus and it showed—bad. I could tell you more of the story, but the point is: it’s still one of my biggest regrets to this day. 

When my clients head in that direction, I coach them from that experience: “Stop focusing on what you fear the audience is thinking. That’s total guesswork fueled by your insecurities. Your job is to connect with the people in the room.” Immediately, the focus changes and sharpens. That was 10 years ago, and now every dollar I earn is helping people communicate, despite having made this embarrassing mistake. Mistakes don’t define us, nor should they paralyze us. 

However, that’s exactly what I’m seeing these days: people who are conversationally paralyzed, who choose to back off rather than engage with others. Even in the shallowest of conversational waters, people are hesitant to talk to each other. As I’m working with people from across the country, they just don’t know what to say, they don’t want to make matters worse, they don’t want to feel awkward, they don’t want to create any hint of negative impression and other similar reasons. These comments are not even about a conflict, just amid general conversation. The big and small conversational fears are seriously paralyzing us. 

The situation isn’t difficult to understand; there is no shortage of people who say the wrong things, but I fully believe that saying nothing is worse because our relationships can be realistically measured by our conversations. When there are no conversations, the relationships are on life-support or already dead. Our churches are feeling this in a big way. After a long and difficult Covid-forced separation from each other, it seems to me that our church families aren’t recovering very well. Our manners have gotten rusty, and our isolation has increased our conversational anxiety. Once we became separated, many families decided to just drift away because the relationships weren’t strong enough to withstand the dynamics of the pandemic.

Living through the pandemic as a minister was decidedly tough, and my prayers and high-fives are with all the hard-working ministers. Thank you for continuing to serve our church families. Because my husband accepted a new job which required a move, I’ve been out of ministry for one year now and it still feels weird after being in full-time ministry for 11 years. At times, that grief really hits me hard. The other day, I was reading a book entitled Under the Magnolias, by T. I. Lowe. The story is about a teenage girl, Austin, whose mother dies after giving birth to twins. The girl’s father is mentally ill and there are six other children in the family who need care. You can imagine how the story goes; it’s one disaster on top of another. Austin isn’t equipped to deal with all the overwhelming problems, and her insecurities often come out in defensive and prickly behaviors. Among the failures, there is a scene in the book that I appreciated deeply. The scene takes place when Austin is at her wit’s end, bruised and beaten by one too many disappointments. Austin’s community of misfits gather around her in their little church building on the farm where she lived and simply thank her for walking alongside them, for befriending, for including, for noticing their humanity… and also for the words she shared with them. 

All in all, these things were nothing spectacular, yet the simplicity was holy and maybe the only Jesus that ever made much difference was relationship. Relationship isn’t possible without conversation. For me, ministry was a study in failure more than I wanted it to be. But when I read this part in the book, I immediately thought about the countless times where I had the simple and holy joy of befriending and including people in the name of Jesus. I’ll always be grateful for that.

Communication mistakes don’t define us, nor should they paralyze us—whether it’s Grandparents’ Day at my alma mater, a conversation in the church foyer, or coffee with a friend. Sincerely connect with the person in the room: befriend, include, notice someone’s humanity and yes, talk. It’s that simple; it’s that holy.