on the joys of precision

To hear Brandi read this week’s essay, click here: https://youtu.be/mUE9IFFgUwo

I’m a contrarian.

I’ve spent a lot of energy in the last twenty years trying to become a nice contrarian, but the label reveals me. I generally find labels a demeaning tool of evil, a reductionist way of describing other miracle-humans. That said, I’m also generally happy to admit a label that suits me well. Indeed, “own your shit” reasonably captures one of my core beliefs and practices. Not sure it should go on my tombstone or hang cross-stitched in my kitchen, but still. It offers me a way forward from many a wrong-headed dead end.

Owning our faults, our choices, our bias, our ideas about self and community, feels like a solid place to begin any thought or prayer or conversation. It requires me to be precise in where I stand, how I view others, and how I attempt or fail to align my actions with the values I hold. It requires us to take ourselves seriously. What we think and believe shapes the sources we trust and the advice we give. Naming the foundation of those ideas with specificity is crucial if we hope to live well with others.

A couple asked me to talk to them about educational choices in Nashville. I begin such conversations with a clear confession of my bias. I name exactly what I care most about and describe how I tend to think about the purpose of education and the history of the endeavor here in Nashville. I don’t start there because I think my biases are particularly egregious; instead, I do so because I respect the fact that they are the ones making a new choice here. Not me. They deserve to hear my experience and to access advice, but only through a frame of my clearly stated bias. If they don’t share my way of seeing the world or my hope for how my kids will learn and participate in it, then my advice might be useless to them. That’s fair.

Precision is key when owning our stuff or amplifying what we value in our communities.

Words are handy in our desire to communicate as long as they signify in clear, consistent ways. Many words don’t anymore though, and these slippages make collaborative meaning making hard. Because we need to collaborate in this life, I’m asking us to work harder to resist lazy labels and instead to speak in ways that clarify our positions.

To be a person who is FOR faith or justice or woke-ness or life or freedom or democracy requires us to name exactly what we mean when we invoke such a label. For instance, my understanding of myself as a Christian prevented me from voting for Donald Trump. For many others, their vote for Mr. Trump was an expression of their Christian-ness. Behold the fluid nature of words.

My contrarian instincts cause me to flinch if someone asks if I’m a Christian precisely because the word signals differently to diverse audiences. Do I believe Jesus is the Son of God whose sacrifice redeems me, offering me hope as I do justice and love mercy within the context of a humble community sacrificing for others as a testament to a longer arc of hope? Yes. But the label “Christian” no longer signifies a specific orientation toward God or others. My claiming of the word could signify my adherence to patriarchy and nativist white supremacy, or it could signify my advocacy to abolish the death penalty, or it could signal that I champion the death penalty and advocate against abortion. It could mean I love capitalism and loathe welfare. Or it could mean I desire to share resources and care for the poor. The word contains multitudes, and it makes me want to reject it. Labels have always been weaponized, but now conversations are like navigating land mines.

We affirm or attack using words whose meaning is unclear, making it all but impossible to really see or know another person, let alone feel affection for them or find common ground.

 We still share a planet though. We share parks and schools and street corners and air and a government. We have to collaborate, and that means we have to keep working to communicate with others. Don’t dismiss others by labeling them, and don’t dismiss yourself by playing it safe in the vague middle. Try harder to speak with precision. Explain your advocacy or frustration in precise ways. Don’t settle for lazy labels that fail to describe the nuance for which you strive. Don’t be a victim of a process that co-opts and muddles words, but choose to precisely claim the things you value. Failing to do so keeps us less known, less appreciated, less connected. Speaking up with precise language sharpens the thinking of everyone around you. You might even find it helps you own your stuff.

Allow me a closing thought on the joys of precision. Three of our four go to a school built around the idea that kids learn best when they are safe and known in all the diversity they bring. They pursue academic excellence through social emotional learning. They experience this mostly in a practice called “Circle”, where every kid and adult gathers several times a week to check in, presenting aspects of their emotional growth, resolving differences in community, and appreciating each other. “Appreciations”, as they are known, are my favorite practice of their school community. Students affirm a specific aspect of another’s identity or behavior. “Brandi, I appreciate they way you…” The guidelines suggest the student must maintain eye contact and speak with precision both on the action or trait and on the way it impacts the speaker.

Isn’t that beautiful? Looking someone in the eye and telling her exactly why you think she is fabulous is a super power. Life is too short to stay vague. In your critiques and appreciations, be specific. Every interaction offers each of us the chance to own our shit, describe our thinking, and appreciate others with precise language. Let’s not by lazy. Let’s communicate openly, with nuance and with specificity, as we work to expand our us.