It is a joyous occasion to authentically (re)discover that one has been wrong. It can also be surprising, discomforting, and even traumatic. Nonetheless, the genuine realization that something is in fact something else, or nothing at all, is a profound blessing. Especially when such things are known about oneself. Oftentimes, the realization is a form of surrender to the fact that we know less about what we thought that we knew.
It seems strange, then, that we also desire to be right about things. For example, the world of blogging is full of braggarts like me who insist on being right all the time. We often write the most when we are telling our readers—under no uncertain terms, like the ones I am speaking in today—what is wrong about this thing or that person. How is it then that in the midst of this deranged desire to be right, discovering our faults is such a blessing? Is it simply preventative, simply a case where we can know not to err this way again?
I want to think that the blessing of discovering that I have been wrong all along is related to the desire to be right, but it is not just a preventive service to that prideful desire. To admit that we know less than we thought we did opens up space for the knowledge of God. We approach knowing God when we admit that we do not know. This is beyond epistemic knowing and beyond rhetorical argumentation. It is beyond proof or even justice.
When we learn that things are less than they once seemed to be, when the world appears more mysterious, when we admit that we are lost, when we do all these kinds of things, God becomes possible.
This is the paradoxical blessing of being wrong: In the realization that things are not what we were once sure that they were, we make space for the re-enchantment of the world through the mystery of the unknown God.
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