High Anxiety

“Anything worth doing is worth doing right.”

It’s something my grandpa often said. It was his way of encouraging me to make my best effort, no matter how menial the task. Whether I was studying for a big test or vacuuming the family room, if the task deserved my attention, it deserved my full attention. It deserved to be done right.

The idea has stuck with me. I like to think I’m the kind of person who washes dishes with the same dedication I bring to blog posts (and one who can leave dishes in the sink if what needs doing right is giving myself a break!).

I repeated this morsel of wisdom at a staff meeting a few years ago and got a lot of pushback. Someone much younger than I reacted with anxiety. To them, the advice felt like pressure to get it right, and he wondered if he’d be in trouble if he failed.

His concern made sense; I was his boss after all, and bosses can be judgy. Truth be told, I could relate to my colleague’s fear of failure, though I don’t think my fear came from my grandpa! Though he encouraged me to do my best, he was also the one gentle presence I could count on amid a whole cadre of family members, teachers, and preachers who were never shy about ridiculing my failings and triggering deep shame: the idea that, if I couldn't do a thing exactly right, then maybe it wasn't worth my doing it after all.

One way I avoided the call-out of shame was to keep my head down and my mouth shut. I became a conflict avoider, preferring to be silent as the grave rather than risk being caught making a mistake. No matter the conversation, I was careful to keep my doubts and questions to myself lest I be proven wrong. I did the whole go-along-to-get-along routine, and was perceived as a kind, gentle presence who never rocked the boat.

A few weeks ago, the leadership team at my church initiated a congregation-wide conversation on healthy conflict. Our pastor, Rev. Mary Herbig, pointed out that Jesus did NOT say, “Blessed are the peacekeepers.” He said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God” (Matt 5:9).

What’s the difference? Peacekeeping is self-protective. It avoids upsetting the people whose approval matters to you, keeps silent instead of having difficult conversations or asking questions when everyone else is ready to move on to a different subject.

Peacemaking is the opposite of go-along-to-get-along. It risks rocking the boat, even if it means inviting ridicule and shame along the way to something better.

In my work as a writer, blogger and educator about the power of nonviolence, I have been privileged to know many risk-takers for peace. They’d also be the first to tell you that, if you want clear evidence the path of peace is worth taking, you’d better learn to squint and develop a thick skin. Peacemaking involves plenty of failures and plenty of people are happy to point them out. Every time a ceasefire fails or a new war breaks out, it is taken as proof that the world is a dangerous place and that pursuing peace with one’s enemies is a risk only fools take.

Well, of all the things in this world worth doing right, peacemaking is the thing I will risk making a fool of myself over. To say I want to get it right does not mean I am striving to do something grand and glorious that will establish peace on Earth once and for all! Imagine if the next Nobel Peace Prize was the last one, because peace had become as unremarkable as the sun rising in the East! Make it so, Lord! Even then, this work would be worth doing.

Getting it right certainly doesn’t mean that I will achieve some grand success; but it does mean that no mistake I make will ever be big enough to thwart the many tiny changes for peace being made on Earth every single day!

Do you know the song, Peace Like a River? The refrain goes, “I’ve got peace like a river in my soul.” That image makes sense to me. I imagine peace to be a great, wide river that has been flowing for millennia and will continue to flow long after my life is over. My efforts fall like raindrops, contributing to the surging waters of the river’s flow. If I make mistakes and get in the way, I’m a pebble and not a boulder. That, to me, is what it means to “get peace right”; any short-term view of the risks, mistakes, successes and failures is doomed to miss the big picture: this river is a mighty river whose beginning and end will forever remain a mystery.

My greatest hope is that I can keep adding raindrops to the river as long as I live. Some of those drops are in my personal life with family and friends, and some are in my professional life. If the study guide I am writing for the revised ebook of The Wicked Truth can encourage more people to add their raindrops to the river, I couldn’t be happier!

What I’ve learned from dedicated peacemakers is that peace is not a destination. We are not meant to get there, but we are meant to live there as though we have arrived. To work for peace is to overcome our fear of failing, because failing is baked into it! Anything truly worth doing right will never be accomplished in one lifetime, not yours and not mine.

The river is flowing, mistakes and all! So what’s there to be anxious about?