In April 2020, our world plunged into a scramble. For anyone not living in a very remote and deep cave, you know that by April, Americans had been confined to their homes for a number of weeks due to the pandemic. Our unexpected ‘vacation’ from work came to an end and we had to find ways to get back to business. For those of us fortunate enough to have work easily transferable to an online format, Zoom became our new conference room.
Thankfully, video conferencing platforms had taken a foothold in advance of the pandemic shutdown. But now the need to use this venue exploded exponentially. We all needed to become experts, and fast. Anytime a new routine gets established in such rapid-fire circumstances, challenges inevitably crop up. We can’t anticipate the many issues that will arise and commonly agreed upon rules are slow to manifest. Enter poor Zoom etiquette.
Now this may not seem terribly important. After all, Ms. Manners is clearly out of vogue (have you noticed how many of us go to the grocery store in our pajamas? Our standards for professionalism have lowered considerably!). But, etiquette, commonly agreed upon rules, and the like are generally developed for deeper reasons.
You see, in the midst of our explosion of online meetings, we’ve failed to notice the many ways that trust, which is critical for relationships, is being eroded at a rapid pace. Beyond the trouble of missed connections, lagging and glitchy video, and forgetting to turn on (or off!) our audio, many of us are employing practices that are getting in the way of trust. Think for a minute about virtual backgrounds (do you trust that you are speaking only to the person you see on your screen?). Or, how does it feel when someone’s video turns off mid-meeting (are they still there)? What about noticing your colleague multi-tasking when you are in the middle of making a critical presentation (are you and your thoughts not important enough to hold their attention)?
Yes, etiquette has its place. And, so does confession. That may not be a natural segue for you, but as an ordained Presbyterian minister, it is for me. Let me explain.
Since the vast majority of Americans are now ‘spiritual but not religious,’ confession, like so much religious ‘dogma,’ is a “baby that has been thrown out with the bath water.” I would argue that this is a huge societal problem. Confession is a way to acknowledge our deepest realities. To put voice to matters we’d prefer not utter to ourselves, much less another human being. And to do so without fear of judgment. Or at least, that is what it is designed to do. When your grandmother couldn’t talk with your grandfather about something, the natural place for her to go was to her priest or rabbi. Maybe just getting the issue off her chest was enough. Or maybe her pastor offered a thought that helped her step into a necessary conversation.
Now, post-church membership, we take our troubles to our therapist. Most of us no longer live intentionally in a religious community and don’t have the benefit of being held by a group larger than our families or friend groups. Sometimes this is a good thing, which is what caused the departure from religious communities in the first place. But, it can also leave us swimming in an overly individualistic society, at times drowning in our own pools of freedom from community.
In a Presbyterian worship service, one of the first things that happens is confession. It is said corporately (all together … a written confession that meets us (as an individual) exactly where we are some weeks, and not so much on others), followed by a period of silence for personal confessions to be prayed by each worshipper. The point is to clear our conscious first. The flow of worship is to
- Come as we are.
- Acknowledge where we are.
- Be forgiven for not being our best selves.
- Be reminded how much we are surrounded by God.
- Be called to try again to be the people we were created to be, namely individuals that bring love and healing into our world.
Sounds like a decent way to live life, with the intrinsic benefit of building and growing trust … in God, in ourselves, in our families and in work environments. Maybe a new practice of confession would benefit our business circles? Something to consider …