If slamming on the brakes can damage a car, then I damaged my car last week. It was worth it. In fact I have never sat so gleefully at a light that I missed because I ran it six weeks ago. At first I met its gaze, but it looked at me unaware that it had lost. Assurance gave way to doubt as my mind replayed the scene. The light turned green, but my skin stayed red. All except the white of my knuckles against the wheel.

Dramatic retelling aside, I would have seen the red light if I had learned from it. Instead, I let my comfort with the three streets that I walk each day disguise my inexperience with the rest of them. Living in New Orleans does not make me a native, and working as a missionary does not make me one. I can barely type “§” after three years of law school, and I have not exchanged case law for canon without a few hiccups. The lights that I do see every day have taught me, but I must learn from the ones that I don’t. My little league coach said that I absorb information like a sponge, so I’ve wrung out below what I could.

Don’t: tell a Jewish person “it’s ok” that they are Jewish; try to explain the Trinity without consulting the Catechism; close an auto-locking door without bringing the keys; play a catchy song on repeat before silent prayer; hike to a post office without determining whether they accept credit card; open a closed confessional door; take exit 12D to St. Patrick’s downtown—no matter what Siri says.

Do: remember that the word is “convert” and not “transfer”; remind non-Catholics not to eat Jesus after you invite them to Mass; put your shoes back on when a gym staffer asks; gently correct statements that are technically heresy.

All of that said, locking myself out of my apartment does not stain my soul the way that sin does (but it feels pretty damn close). In that sense, routine “red lights” do arise here, but less routine means greater exposure to unexpected ones. Temptations can surprise me like my light did, but after that it’s on me. The campus did not surprise me, and it has not tempted me. Ladies wear less to class than they did four years ago, but that trend is older than I am. I figured that I would look at the ground out of precaution; I find that I do so out of sorrow.

Scandalous sin is easy to avoid. I am not inclined to it, and students watch me all the time. The difficulty is where they can’t see. Consequence casts a shadow over my interactions with them, but my character flaws struggle to gauge how large it looms. And over whom. Did I speak with enough conviction? Too little charity? Am I understanding a struggle or approving a sin? I ask these questions out of care for my students, but pride also wants my every word to land flush.

The temptation that I did not expect—the red light that I did not see—is my focus on rhetoric for its own sake. Back home my thoughts were like a draft that I never had to present. Not perfect but always perfecting. Now each conversation feels like a hearing, and their transcripts never come out quite right. After years of polishing my thoughts, I struggle to accept the blemishes of speaking them. But I will. Fans don’t watch the game in dirty jerseys, but players don’t play in clean ones.

Deo Gratias.