David McElroy

The fight wasn’t so different from what her daughters had seen a hundred times. The family had just watched a movie together — mother, father and two daughters — when something set off a fight between the parents.

There was screaming. There were threats. Then crying. Anger and quiet fear were in the air.

After the worst was over, the mom stepped out onto the front porch to get herself together. She was crying when her daughters came outside to check on her. Then she put on a brave face and reassured the girls that everything was fine.

The 13-year-old was silent, but the 11-year-old asked a question.

“Mom, is this what love will be?” she asked with fear in her voice.

After years of putting up with ugly fights and threats, that was the moment when everything changed for the mom. She told me the story tonight — about the night she decided to leave — nine months after this family drama played out.

For years, the woman had been in denial. She believed her husband’s promises to change. She accepted his excuses. She told herself that her girls deserved to have their father. But if this is what her daughters were learning, it was time to get out.

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If the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down Roe v. Wade later this year, I don’t plan to talk about it publicly.

That doesn’t mean I won’t have thoughts about it. That just means there will be nothing useful for me to say. If you thought the country was divided by opinions about Donald Trump or George Floyd, wait until you see this.

If you think social media is polarizing now, just wait until what such a decision will bring. And I have nothing to say that would make any of the extremists — on any side — happy. In fact, I can’t imagine an opinion such as mine being read at that time. So if that happens, I won’t be talking about it.

Why?

Because either extreme on the issue brings about an end result which I believe is morally wrong and is socially destructive. But in this social and political environment, you are required to be on one side or the other — in the extreme — without fail. If you express concerns about what either result will bring us, you will be shouted down as a heretic.

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I’ve probably been wrong more often than anybody I know.

I like to think that’s simply because I know my own thoughts. I know all the times when I’ve come to a firm conclusion about something — only to be forced to change what I believe as I learn more and gain more wisdom.

Maybe a lot of other people feel the same inside. Maybe they’ve seen themselves take dogmatic positions and then had to admit — at least to themselves — that they were wrong.

I fear, though, that most people believe they’ve rarely been wrong. At least about the “big things.”

I have a feeling that most people believe they were taught the truth early in life — because they happened to be born into the only group which was right — or else they broke away from whatever they were taught as children. Those in that second group seem to believe that whatever they decided to believe at that point in life is the truth.

Most people seem to believe they have life figured out. Most have little interest in understanding why other people see reality differently than they do. Even those who want to be honest and consistent in their beliefs resist change, because pride leaves us afraid to change when we discover we’ve been wrong.

I know what that feels like. That’s the way I lived for years. I was rarely wrong — in my own mind — because I rarely changed what I believed. One of the hardest things I ever learned is that growth and wisdom required me to accept that I’ve been wrong about much of what I’ve believed.

What’s more, I’m still wrong about some of the things I believe. I simply don’t know yet which of my beliefs are wrong.

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