Cathy Pedler
I believe I am wrong. Believing I am wrong helps me look at the world in a completely different way-almost by the hour. When I decide there is a chance I may be wrong, new paths open in my mind and in whatever it is inside of us that connects us to all other life. Being wrong allows me to start an exploratory process where I know I will never be right, but maybe I'll be less wrong for a while simply for changing direction.
When I was 18 my path was one of an evangelical missionary. The earth then was a gift from god. Cultures other than my own were fascinating, but condemned and in need of redemption. During my first year of college a recruiter for one of the mission agencies explained to me that their group didn't need any more women. They needed men, because women couldn't be spiritual leaders. I think my mind broke in a thousand ways that day. But the cracks were fertile, and allowed me to question myself and my culture. Because I realized I was wrong, it followed that the dictates that structured my world were also wrong.
I've embraced that early experience as an adaptive strategy for my life. I find that allowing myself to be wrong gives me the tools I need to question the bars that form our personal and societal cages-and the spaces between, which we collectively call our freedoms.
Today, at 42, I find myself questioning what I had, until recently, considered to be my rights and freedoms. I find myself wondering why speaking freely and defending ourselves are defined as rights. In traditional societies, speaking freely and defending oneself are simply considered personal virtues, not requiring a formal declaration. Moreover, why do we consider private property a right? In a short period of time (when one considers the antiquity of earth) this right has turned living things into spirit-less packages. The sacred is lost when life is traded as a marketable resource.
I had a dream not long ago. I stood beside the Allegheny River. I looked up from the water to see that what had been forested hills were now bare mounds of earth-no trees, no birds, no bears-nothing but two yellow earth movers winding around the hills. I was overwhelmed with a sick feeling of frustration and helplessness that grew to rage and sorrow. Sometimes dreams allow us to understand what in waking life we are afraid to face-that there might be something dreadfully wrong with both ourselves and the world we live in. I may be wrong in even posing these questions, but it is hard to argue with a screaming soul.
About Cathy Pedler
Cathy Pedler began working at Mercyhurst in 1991 as a researcher in the Archeological Institute. After years of cultivating environmental projects and initiatives in the college community, she became Mercyhurst's Environmental Sustainability Coordinator in 2004. What she likes most about Mercyhurst is its potential for change through initiatives that, as she puts it, "not just push, but tear the envelope."