Gazebo

The other day we were wandering around when our youngest started talking about medicine which people take which doesn't really do anything but "people think it does so it makes them better". She looked at me with that eight year old assurance - that look which tells me I absolutely know nothing - and said,
"It's a gazebo, mummy." It took me a moment to process and offer the real word - placebo.

Sometimes though I am right in there with her - the things I think I know turn out to be not quite so solid as I had assumed - I can be wrong. Being wrong is hard and sometimes something which we pretend to forget when we get to being grown up - especially if we get to being the sort of grown up who no one ever wants to challenge.

The problem with not allowing ourselves to be wrong is that we might just end up going around calling sugar pills gazebos. There is an underlying assumption in Christianity that we are all on the same path and we all have things to learn from God and from each other - unfortunately, sometimes, that means swallowing hard and accepting, with humility, the times when we are plain old wrong. The good news is that God smiles kindly on us and always offers a way for us to redeem ourselves and learn the right word.