Day Seventeen.

WTF did I (not) do? Acts 3:17.

We welcome Alicia Crosby as today’s featured voice. Alicia is a lover, healer, cultivator of space, and chaser of all things beautiful, divine, and just. She lives into this through her work with her nonprofit Center for Inclusivity and through her writing and speaking. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram .@aliciatcrosby.

“Friends, I realize that what you and your leaders did to Jesus was done in ignorance.
— Acts 3:17, New Living Translation (NLT)

“HOLY SHIT! WHAT THE FUCK DID I JUST…?
How did I manage to…?
Crap crap crap crap crap.”

Welcome to the internal stream of consciousness that flows through my mind whenever I realize that I’ve screwed up in a major way. These thoughts are usually accompanied by some internal shrieking and pacing, shallow breathing, sweaty palms, tightened muscles, and blood rushing to my face.

This may sound familiar to you because the majority of us have pretty visceral reactions when we know we’ve messed up royally. That feeling is magnified when we understand that our actions don’t just inconvenience others but actually harms them or contributes to their oppression.

Awakening to the reality that your action or inaction has a very real, tangible negative impact on another person’s life pushes you into an incredibly complex emotive space. That moment is tempered by horror at what you’ve done (or failed to do), shame about your ignorance and the privilege(s) that allowed you to remain ignorant for so long, and a desire to refrain from perpetuating any more harm but not quite not knowing where to start.

I get it. I really do. I am intimately familiar with this emotional space. I know what it’s like to be mortified and be afraid to do anything for fear of messing up and causing more harm. I understand what it’s like to be afraid to move because you know you fucked up and that fuck up has consequences.

But not doing anything isn’t actually an option when you know better, is it? Well, it is but if you allow yourself to remain suspended in a state of inaction you are consciously complicit in upholding someone else’s oppression.

In Acts 3, the apostle Peter gives some good advice to the folks in the early Church after they messed around and killed Jesus. After acknowledging their screw up in verse 17 saying, “Friends I realize that what you and your leaders did to Jesus was done in ignorance,” Peter then tells them to repent and turn to God.

This Advent, I want to do for you what Peter did for our siblings in the faith by acknowledging your screw up and pushing at your impulse to freeze in fear.

You, my dear sibling, messed up. That moment where you thought “WTF did I (not) do?” is one in which your latent racial bigotry, homophobia, transphobia, classism, ableism, misogyny, or other forms of prejudice surfaced and you recognized that you stole something life-giving from one of God’s beloved children.

That being said, it’s now time for you to tell your inner voice to “shut the hell up,” hold the discomfort in what you’ve done (or failed to do), and repent.

Don’t just say that you’re sorry; now that you know better, do better.

Go back and work to disrupt and dismantle the oppressive-ass systems that created a space for the children of God — these healers, these revolutionary thinkers, these leaders, these beautiful bearers of the Imago Dei — to be harmed in the first place.

Turn to God and seek divine help as you work to do what you can to restore to the world what you took away in ignorance.