It was just a stupid projector.
Two of my coworkers were in the basement, trying to set up an outline so we could sketch some final signs for our semester projects. We had a projector, a small room, and a little canvas… and it needed to line up perfectly if this was going to work.
They didn’t really ask me to help, but I was near by and thought I would try anyway. After all, I had help mount the projector system… I knew what I was doing. I had an idea, and so got to work stacking up pillows to simulate the exact angle that we needed. One of my coworkers warned me that they didn’t think it was a safe idea, but I was sure it was the best way to get our desired result, so I kept going.
It turns out that stacking something you need to be exact on a stack of soft pillows is not exactly the smartest idea. It had about as much stability as I did at the moment. And much to my chagrin, it just wouldn’t hold still. It finally tumbled forward, and though it didn’t break, I did. I snapped at my coworker, at my friend, and threw my hands in the air.
She had been suggesting something different all along, but for the first time in what seemed like forever I felt like this was a situation that I could speak up in. I’ve worked with production gear before, and though I am no expert, I thought I was expert enough to speak loudly in that situation. I thought I was competent enough to have a voice.
I’m not sure when those two were tied in my head, Competence and Voice. Maybe it was as a kid, when you were supposed to only speak when it was really important. Maybe it was during my time navigating the structures of “professional” churches, where competence and competitiveness are unspoken values of the highest degree. Maybe it was in my academic tenure, where your credentials, experience, and expertise determined whether or not anyone would listen to you or take you seriously.
“Tony, this doesn’t match what I know of you,” said Beth (my team leader/boss). “I don’t understand this world where your expertise equates to your worthiness to be heard.”
It doesn’t match… and yet it does. My spoken theology and philosophy fight so hard for voice for others… for the Other. It’s what I see in Jesus, especially in all the social-undoing work he speaks in his parables. It’s what I see in Love, that gives the other dignity without requiring something from them first. Being human is enough. You deserve to be heard.
And yet in a world where incompetence is my daily bread it becomes evident that there are some wires that are crossed deep inside me. There’s an internalized message that you get a voice when you earn it through competence. And in that, that the negative is true: you do not get a voice if you are incompetent. As if there is a line your cross one day where you go from the latter to the former.
It was just a stupid projector, but it showed me part of my heart. It showed me some broken pieces that hurt myself and hurt others as the context of my newness rubs up against them. I knew that when I came here, I was signing up for an extended period of being not good enough. Most days it’s a success if I can figure out how to feed myself, let alone contribute to society!
But since when did being “good enough” really matter anyway?
Since when did it mean you were allowed to contribute to the conversation?
No, these are separate. At least, they are separate to the Jesus who let prostitutes anoint him with oil bought with tainted money, to the Jesus who honored that woman forever as one of true love and hospitality.
He still honors prostitutes. He still can flip our worlds up-side down.
And He still loves people who get mad about projectors and not being good enough.
Still Wandering,
Tony