My granddaddy always said, keep your own counsel. Don’t tell your business all over the place. And I lived by that for years without even realizing I had. See, that’s how it works. Nobody has to say it out loud. We just absorb it from the air around us. We pick it up from what people do. From what gets punished. From what gets praised.
I didn’t know until I was older that I had written this script for myself: don’t ever be wrong. Don’t ever say something incorrect. Because when you say something wrong, people shame you. They correct you. They look at you like you’re stupid. So I decided to just not talk.
We all have these scripts. Your mama always told you something. Your granddaddy said something. And maybe it was good advice. Maybe it was broken advice. But it’s running in your head now, telling you who you are and how you should be. The thing is, Jesus looks at all of that and says, who is my mother? Who are my brothers? He’s saying that living God’s way matters more than living by the rules we inherited. More than staying silent. More than being perfect. Your story starts here. In God. In what God wants for you. Not in what your family decided.
A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope