Errors, Real and Imagined
Who can detect one’s own errors? – Psalm 19:12 (NRSVUE)
Presumably when the psalmist asks who can detect one’s own errors, what they have in mind is how easy it is to think you’re righteous when in fact you’re really screwing up. And of course we all know people like that. We’ve all also been people like that.
Honestly, though, for many the bigger problem is knowing which errors we’re truly guilty of and which ones we’re only afraid we are. Are we actually messing our kids up, or are we just worried we are? Are we in fact bad friends, or are we scared we might be? Does everyone at the office think we’re weird, or lazy, or bad at our jobs, or are we just worried they do? Did that thing we did render us unlovable even by God, or are we just worried it did?
“Clear me from hidden faults” is the next line of the psalm, but for many of us, some other prayer might be better. “Clear me from imagined faults,” maybe, or “Show me which of the long list of faults in my head aren’t real.”
Who can detect one’s own errors, and who can detect what’s just some BS our nasty inner critic, or our anxiety, or our trauma, is serving up for funsies today?
This kind of discernment is what the church is for, of course. Trusted friends, too. And therapists. The world may be full of guilty people pretending to be innocent, but to me it seems at least as full of innocent people thinking they’re guilty.
Prayer
Who can detect one’s own errors? Not me. Show me what I need to be shown. Amen.
About the AuthorQuinn G. Caldwell is Chaplain of the Protestant Cooperative Ministry at Cornell University. His most recent book is a series of daily reflections for Advent and Christmas called All I Really Want: Readings for a Modern Christmas. Learn more about it and find him on Facebook at Quinn G. Caldwell.