Moyer 1, Martin 0

Yesterday I learned a new word, or rather, I learned how to pronounce one. Not a rare word, not something buried in ancient texts, but a word I may have encountered countless times without ever hearing it spoken aloud: academician. When a friend used it in conversation, I froze. I could define it, employ it in writing, perhaps even trace some of its etymology, yet I had never actually heard it pronounced. After asking what it meant and hearing his explanation, I responded, “I’m just going to sit here in my wrongness for a little while. Just let me sit.”

The moment was both humbling and oddly ludicrous. As a child, having exhausted the books at home, I turned to the encyclopedia, then the thesaurus, then whatever the local library would yield. My vocabulary grew faster than my social awareness. I could read nearly any word, but couldn’t always voice it. This became a recurring theme in my life: I might stumble over pronunciation, but I likely knew the definition, derivatives, and cross-references. Yet somehow, academician, of all words, had escaped my notice.

This encounter brought to mind something my late friend, Patrick A. Rogers, once shared. Whenever he published an article, he deliberately incorporated one word he had never used before. It kept him learning, he said, and more importantly, it kept him humble. His wisdom rings true: words, like life itself, have a way of teaching us humility. Just when we believe we’ve achieved mastery, they reveal the vast territories of our ignorance.

I’ve come to believe that faith operates on similar principles. We can memorize Scripture, rehearse theological definitions, and still miss the beating heart of what we claim to know. We can discourse eloquently about grace and forgiveness yet fail to pronounce them in the grammar of our daily lives. Knowledge is one thing; embodiment is quite another.

This is the gift of sitting in our wrongness: it slows us down long enough to truly listen. It mirrors the essence of genuine confession, that moment when we cease defending ourselves, stop explaining, and simply rest in the truth of our imperfection. The discomfort is palpable, yet this is holy ground.

David understood this sacred posture when he prayed in Psalm 139: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my thoughts. See if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Here is a soul willing to remain still in its wrongness, to let divine scrutiny reveal what human perception missed.

Perhaps being an academician, in the truest, most profound sense, isn’t about information mastery at all.

Perhaps it’s about learning the art of sitting: sitting with humility, sitting with curiosity, sitting with God long enough for correction to become transformation.

Yesterday’s lesson reminded me that being wrong is not the antithesis of learning but its very genesis. Growth doesn’t emerge from pretending omniscience; it flourishes when we allow truth to find us, even when it carries a sting. I couldn’t help but smile at the irony: a man who has spent his life teaching others about the words of life, stumbled by one. Yet that stumbling did what all good teachers do: it compelled me to listen.

And in that quiet space of listening, I remembered that wisdom’s essence isn’t found in getting it right the first time. It’s discovered in possessing the humility to remain seated when we don’t.

~PW 🌮🛶