"A Sermon Series: Part III -- Speak the Truth"
by Rev. Kimi Riegel
 June 8, 2003

Meditation: The Peace of Wild Things - Wendell Berry
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Sermon: “Speak the Truth” 
Show up, pay attention, speak the truth, and let go of the outcome. I have called them the four great rules and four great lessons. Today I call them four great precepts or rules for action. I have preached on the first two: show up and pay attention. This is the third in the sermon series: speak the truth.

Now I know I have said this each time but this one is a toughie. For many reasons it is not easy to speak the truth. It’s hard to know what is the truth. And it’s hard in this culture to give voice to truth even when we know what it is. And contrary to popular belief each person’s truth is different, so defining and judging truth can be very difficult. So in just 15 short minutes I plan to offer answers to the questions: what is truth, how can we tell the truth -- and offer an idea of how we might know when truth is being presented. But first why is it important to tell the truth?

It is important to speak the truth because truth opens us to authentic connections and that is after all what we are after. We are lonely critters at heart. Seeking the connections that hold that loneliness at bay is one of our primary motivators in life. We want to feel connected, like we belong, and like we matter. Telling the truth to one another builds those connections. Be that truth religious, personal or even political, when we speak our truth it offers a window into who we are. When we listen to each other’s truth we are accepting a piece of who another is. Truth sharing offers some of the deepest connections we can know. Even if we don’t agree or if our truth is different then theirs – truth in its speaking and listening builds understanding and thus connections.

Speaking truth and listening to truth are important because, as many Native cultures believe, each of us is individual medicine,[1] we have our unique truth, vision, and perspective to offer to the world. Our truth is part of the puzzle the world needs. The more we share our truths, the more likely we are to solve the problems we encounter each day. Your truth can help me see my world in a more compete and holistic way. The more we listen to truth and share truth, the more likely we will find ways to connect and feel like we matter.

 We teach our children at a very early age to tell the truth. For them it is a task of learning what truth is. It is not what they wished had happened. It was not what they imagined could have happened. And truth is based in some kind of physical reality. That’s for kids. We hope they master the art of telling the difference between fact and fiction, truth and story before they are say 10. But the problem is it isn’t that simple for adults. While it is true that we, too, must have a truth based not in exaggeration, wishful thinking, or denial, as adults we begin to see the various grays in the black and white of truth and lie.

We don’t tell our best friend that the dress she just loves makes her look like a washed out sheet – or do we? We don’t tell the boss that we are too sick to come in – cough, cough – when we are not really that sick – or do we? We tell our children that their immature attempts at art are more accomplished than the world’s masters – or do we? We tell ourselves that we will live forever so there is no point in worrying – but will we? The answer to those questions is obviously: yes and no. Because as adults we have learned that the truth with a capitol “T” is hard to determine.

A friend of mine offered these four qualifications, as a way to ascertain if what we are about to speak is truth. Truth, he said, is timely, accurate, useful and kind. Therefore that which is truthful is delivered considering the time and place. That which is truthful is accurate in the sense that is based in our own experience and probably in some observable data. That which is truthful is useful; it has a purpose and it can be put to a use. And finally that which is truthful is kind. It carries with it no blame or judgment and the words are chosen carefully.  

Back to our examples, we see that we can tell our friend about the dress if we do it in a timely way, accurately, with kind words that give her information she can use later when picking out a different dress. Mind you, that is only if we are asked, because unsolicited truth is not kind. We can ask about personal business days from the office when we are hired. But it is not truth to say we are sick when we are not, because that isn’t accurate. And no matter how kind and wonderful Martha Stewart may be, if she is found to be not accurate, her story will not be truth. And our children will use our compliments to build their self-esteem and to us it is accurate that their creations are amazing. And finally, when we are thinking of our own demise, it is accurate that we will not live forever, which is useful for planning, but we can be kind to ourselves and not dwell on it daily. Truth is timely, accurate, kind and useful. Sounds kind of like the Boy Scout motto.

So how do we learn to tell the truth? Practice. First we have to show up and pay attention. We have to be present in the moments we are in and utterly aware of what is going on inside of us and outside. We cannot know the truth unless we are listening for it, listening inside ourselves and to others. Then we must judge the words that we are going to say. Are they timely, accurate, useful and kind? That’s a lot to think about before we open our mouths. For some of us that may mean we will open our mouths less and for others it may mean we say more. Those who tend to say little because they wonder whether what they have to say is valuable, now have a gauge. And those of us who tend to always speak OUR truth, will also have a gauge.  Frequently offered or not, if our truth is timely, accurate, kind and useful it will be truth.

 The benefit is that our relationships will now be much more genuine and full of integrity as each time we are engaged with someone we are aware of our own experiences, feelings, thoughts and sensations. We have shown up and are paying attention. Then before speaking of our truth we have considered whether this is the time, whether what we will say is accurate and can be useful, and whether it is kind.

Yours is a unique perspective and it changes all the time – truth is not a static thing. What is truth one day for me is not necessarily the next, even in the physical realm. I have had a lesson in this with my experiences with the contacts I am trying out. Vision with glasses is different then vision with contacts. Glasses have a distance from the eye so all things while appearing sharper are smaller. What is the truth in my seeing? With the contacts the world is bigger. Is the world really bigger? No. But my truth, my experience, has changed. Yet still just sharing that with you, as my truth, allows us all to consider the different ways we might see truth depending on our perspective. For even in the hard facts of the physical world there is an opportunity for different truths.

So what is speaking the truth – it is our experiences, feelings, sensations and thoughts shared with attention to timing, accuracy, usefulness and kindness. Truth is not necessarily about facts and figures. Is a work of art truth? Is a painting or piece of music truth? Truth is useful in science and rhetoric but it is helpful for us to expand our definition of truth beyond the facts and figures.

I offer these poems as a way to close the service. Each of them for me offers a form of truth.

Truth as Nature

Holy Woman Poem

When the wind blows
that is my medicine
When it rains
that is my medicine
When it hails
that is my medicine
When it becomes clear after a storm
that is my medicine

- Wendell Berry

Truth as Self

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was yourself.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

- Derek Walcott

Truth as Vulnerability

Mankind owns four things
that are no good at sea:
rudder, anchor, oars
and the fear of going down.

- Antonio Machado

Truth as Love

For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most
difficult task of all....,
the work for which all other work is but preparation. It is a high
inducement to the individual to ripen...a great claim upon us,
something that chooses us out and calls us to vast things.

- Rilke

Truth as a Thrust Into Life

Friend, hope for the Guest while you are alive.
Jump into the experience while you are alive!
Think.... and think.... while you are alive.
What you call salvation belongs to the time before death.

If you don't break your ropes while you are alive,
do you think ghosts will do it after?

The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic
just because the body is rotten-
that is all fantasy.
What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing now,
you will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death .
If you make love with the divine now, in the next life you will
have the face of satisfied desire.

So plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is,
Believe in the Great Sound.

Kabir says this: When the guest is being searched for,
it is the intensity of the longing for the Guest that does all the work.
Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.

- Kabir

Perhaps the question is not, “What is the truth?” But instead, “What speaks to me?” or, “What is my experience?” or “What is my Truth to speak?”

The Journey

One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began.
Though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice,
Though the whole house began to tremble,
And you felt the old tug at your ankles.
"Mend my life" each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do.
Though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundation.
Though their melancholy was terrible.
It was already late enough on a wild night,
And the road full of fallen branches and stones.
But little by little as you left their voices behind,
The stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds.
And there was a new voice, which you slowly recognized as your own,
That kept you company as you strolled deeper and deeper into the world.
Determined to do the only thing you could do.
Determined to save the only life you could save.

- Mary Oliver