Margaret Feinberg

When someone from New York wants to take a show on the road, Denver, Colorado, rarely (if ever!) makes their top five city list. Last week, I finally watched Wicked, the popular Broadway musical that finally made its way to our cow town. The performance, music, and story scream oh-so-brilliant.

Wicked illustrated a basic truth: Things are not always what they seem. Whether it’s the conflict between Dorothy and a wicked witch or a conflict in real life, we must remember another side of the story always exist.

Yet I rarely take time to find out the other side of the story. Sometimes it’s simply because I don’t have access. The news or headlines I imbibe reveal a slice of truth, a single point of view, obscuring that idea of another side, another story, another perspective. My mind reminds me that there must be something more I do not know, but my soulish impulses seize the opportunity to grab onto the immediate information available, cast judgement, and choose a side based on that which is most readily available. In some of these situations–both high profile and closer to home–I find it easy to vilify. Searching for someone at fault, a villain, is far easier than searching for truth and recognizing that in our world most conflicts are far more complex that good versus evil, good people versus bad people, or selfish motives versus pure ones.

Nowhere is this more evident than within the church world. On occasion I’ve had the opportunity to step back stage into the deeper complexities of an area of conflict, disagreement, or failure. While situations from the box seats (blogs, twitters, and pews) may seem easy to call, perspective changes when you’re standing on stage, going behind the curtain, and talking with those involved.

Issues that were once black and white become flesh and blood. Behind the scenes one begins to recognize different truths. Maybe someone did the very best with what they had been giving. Maybe a hard decision had to be made and those involved will be first one to tell you they didn’t make the right one. Maybe circumstances which can’t be made public (for a variety of reasons) shaped the outcome.

In such scenarios,the only thing we know for sure is that we don’t know the whole story.

When I forget this basic truth, I morph into  the villain. Whether subtle or outright, I attack. I pick sides. I dig in my heals. I defend that which should not be defended and fail to defend that which should be guarded. I become hard hearted. Pride and contempt lay hold of my heart. Bitterness seeps in. To put it in terms of the Broadway musical, Which witch have I become?

My prayer this day is that I will walk in humility, compassion and grace in that which I read about in the headlines, the rumors I unintentionally hear, and the situations that unfold daily in our communities and world. Amen.