Dismissing the message

      I am Unitarian Universalist. I belong in this faith. I know this to my entire core. Yet there are ways I struggle with feeling welcome. I did not grow up in a household where the adults went to university. My parents divorced before I was a teen. We were fairly poor. So there are things I don't do well. Grammar is one of them. It has long been a challenge  I allowed myself to stop writing this blog out of fear of judgment. How often do we allow that to stop us?

       Communication is important. If I say or write something then and you don't understand what I'm trying to say we are not communicating. This is why grammar matters. It helps us transcend barriers created by written communication. When you and I talk face to face we communicate we are using many different levels of communication, including body language and tone of voice that helps get the point across. Grammar takes the place of all of that, but how often does it create barriers of its own.

         How often does it become a weapon we use against one another? I realized I was allowing it to be a weapon I used against myself. My fear that since my grammar is not perfect I couldn't communicate in this way was very real. How often does the culture we set up in our congregations become a  barrier to people being able to express the fullness of who they are in this faith?

        No one told me I couldn't blog because my grammar is not perfect. Yet I have heard so many little comments, assumptions about the intelligence and/or education of those with imperfect grammar that I stopped expressing myself so I could belong to this community I love. And in doing so I have robbed my community of my voice.

       We speak of a desire, that I believe exists, to be a diverse community, but when we create situations that make people feel ashamed for who we are; when we make it clear there is a "right way" to be Unitarian Universalist we are robbing our community of voices that could help us grow. There are identities that are made invisible in our communities. Every time we talk about helping the poor as though a poor person could not be among us, ever time we talk about people in ways that make someone feel like they are the other we are making them invisible.

       I will not allow my voice, my written voice, to be silent any longer. I will continue to work on my grammar because it is important to communicate as clearly as possible; but I will never be perfect, which is the best thing I have to offer this faith I love.