Listening to Powerful Truth
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Who in your life speaks truth to you?
In the sixth chapter of the Dhammapada it says:
Regard the person who sees your faults as a revealer of treasures. Associate with that skilled person Keeping company with such a person, things get better, not worse. They should exhort, instruct, and restrain you from poor behavior. To the good, they are endearing,
as one who is wise, who speaks
reprovingly.
To the bad they are unpleasant.
We need people in our lives who can speak truth to us—people who notice our faults. But more than that—and I love this twist—upon being revealed to us, our faults are transformed into treasures. Treasures, because if we are willing to accept honest and truthful feedback, we can become more aware of who we really are. We receive an opportunity to know ourselves better, and to change our ways. Or, as it says, to be restrained from poor behavior.
The teaching tells us, “Keeping company with such a person, things get better, not worse.” We all benefit from those friends and acquaintances who can be honest with us. The question for us today is…. can we hear it?
One of the bedrocks of Unitarian Universalism is the free and responsible search for truth. All kinds of truth. Scientific truths, political truths, historical truths, and more. We continually evolve as a faith community, discovering religious, moral, and philosophical truths. All of these truths matter, but I’m particularly interested in the kinds of truth that come from social and political movements, from justice-oriented movements.
We’ve all heard, I imagine, of the concept of speaking truth to power. For me, that idea invokes a deep emotion, something that feels inspiring and invigorating and empowering. It is the way of the great prophets and leaders.
I imagine some of us have experienced moments in our lives where we were able to speak truth in the presence of someone that needed to hear it. An employer, a politician or some person in a powerful position—someone has heard your words of truth, whether pre-planned or spontaneous.
Or perhaps you have witnessed this act taking place. When we see someone eloquently and boldly proclaiming the truth, standing up and holding a person or a system accountable, we cheer them on, right?
For example, I watched a video recording from a San Francisco city council meeting in which Cat Brooks, a co-founder of the Anti Police-Terror Project in the Bay Area, addressed the city council and police chief shortly after Mario Woods, a Black man, was killed. He was shot by San Francisco police officers something like 20 times on a sidewalk—an event documented by bystanders with cell phones. These are Ms. Brooks’s words to the city council and police chief:
We see what happens, and you trot yourself out and tell us that we are not intelligent enough to understand that we saw a Black man gunned down execution style in broad daylight in the streets of San Francisco… and somehow you think that talking to us like we are children, who have not been examining, studying, watching you and your system for hundreds of years as we figure out how to tear it down, push back, and eventually win. As you continually talk to us like children, you are inciting the rage of the people. I want to be clear with you that a new day has come… To San Francisco, to Oakland, to Baltimore, to Ferguson, to Atlanta, there is a movement sweeping this country, and we are not going to stop until you stop killing us.
I got goose bumps listening to Ms. Brooks speak. And then I wondered, did those in power really hear her? Do they actually hear any of this?
It’s not hard to look at the world today and see all kinds of truths being spoken to power. The big truths about climate change, about racism, truths about the real motivations for wars.
And within the broad truths are many more specific truths: That indigenous and poor communities are often the most severely impacted by climate change. That, when we look at police violence and prison abuse, it’s our transgender friends and family and community members who are treated most brutally, especially trans folks of color. That women and families take the brunt of the violence from veterans exposed to the violence of war, or the violence of occupation, or the violence of colonization, the violence of migration and the violence of poverty.
All this truth is being spoken, along with reports, exposés, documentaries, self-published blogs and videos and books, whistleblowers and congressional hearings. We’ve got letter-writing campaigns and online petitions, independent news stations, university classes, endless hours of YouTube videos. Bold protesters interrupt politicians and block streets while speaking truth through megaphones. Dashboard cameras and bystander cell phone footage capture police violence. There are Department of Justice investigations, Government Accountability Office investigations, outside investigations, inside investigations, independent investigations. Investigations of investigations. Pages of discovery and evidence and findings and de-classified documents….
Our world today is saturated in truths. There is no lack of clear, distilled, well-researched truth.
So again I ask, is “power” listening to all that? Communicating truth is effective only when it is heard and understood and believed. It seems to me that with all this truth being spoken, if power were actually listening, things would be changing a whole lot faster.
While I was in seminary, the concept of prophetic speech was constantly ringing in our minds. Most of us took it as a given—speaking truth to power was an expectation of our upcoming careers.
In the final year of my program, when we were searching for a new president for the school, the candidates each gave a lecture so we could hear them and get a sense of who they were. One of these candidates, Rev. Dr. Rita Nakashima Brock, was the one I remember. She is known for some powerful research into the concept of moral injury—the idea that soldiers’ souls can be deeply wounded or damaged in the course of war. Here I am nearing the end of seminary, and Dr. Nakashima Brock gives her talk about speaking truth to power, and she says… it’s ineffective.
It’s no use to speak truth to power, power doesn’t care about truth, it doesn’t listen to truth, it’s not threatened by truth. You’re wasting your breath. Hearing that was like being up in a hot air balloon, and having someone shoot a hole in it. I thought about that statement, my lofty, prophetic ideals careening back towards the ground. What did she mean? Was she right? Was it true?
Well, if I imagine myself sitting on that San Francisco city council, and hearing someone speaking truth that I might not want to hear, then yes, what Dr. Nakashima Brock said makes sense. Because, if I’m honest about this, I need to recognize that quite often, I am “power” or a representative of power. When I acknowledge and identify as being on the side of power, I can easily see the times where someone was speaking truth to me, and I didn’t want to hear it or believe it. How do I hear that person who is pointing out my faults, or pointing out how I’m complicit in oppressive systems?
For instance, I can certainly acknow-ledge the big truth of patriarchy. It exists, and it takes the basic form of men being more entitled to power and privilege in society. One of the ways patriarchy manifests itself is through sexism. By sexism, I mean both big picture systemic discrimination, like how men still receive higher wages than women for similar work, and also the sexism that plays out in day to day life, such as women being catcalled, whistled at, and stared at on the streets by men. And I’m still OK with hearing these truths—and the many others that go along with it.
But when it comes to me, personally, that’s when my reaction starts changing. I am sexist, and I have done and said sexist things. Hearing that truth is much harder.
And what if it’s really specific? What if someone calls me out on particular behaviors that are sexist—that I interrupted and spoke over a woman at a meeting, and I dismissed her ideas. When it gets personal, I know that I start to find ways to deflect and avoid the truth. A strong desire to defend myself wells up in me.
That’s the moment, the point to focus on—the moment when I shut down and become defensive. Maybe that’s what Dr. Nakashima Brock is getting at in her assessment that speaking truth to power is ineffective. If power is unwilling or unable to hear it, you’re wasting your breath.
Perhaps some of you have heard of the book called The Four Agreements, by don Miguel Ruiz, published in 1997. The agreements are to be impeccable with your word, to not make assumptions, to not take things personally, and to do your best.
The son of the original author released a new version a few years ago called The Fifth Agreement. What is this new amendment to the first four? “Learn to listen.” As much as listening is an intellectual endeavor, it is also profound spiritual work.
What is just as impressive as the moments when people are speaking truth to power are the times when power is able to listen to that truth. When those in power don’t flinch, don’t deflect, don’t defend, but rather listen, and ask questions. How do we train ourselves to listen more, to listen better, to listen more deeply?
This is our challenge, our calling…to act like the “Skilled Person” of the reading from the Dhammapada— the one who welcomes honest, critical feedback, who even seeks it out. And who treats the feedback as treasure, who is grateful for hard and powerful truth.
First, we need to acknowledge the places where we hold positions of power— then the listening follows.
With brilliant truth being spoken to the powerful in social movements such as those addressing racism and poverty and gender and climate and all these issues that we and our planet are currently facing, I constantly need to remind myself: Hey, I’m being asked to listen and understand this—to really hear and respond to what these prophetic folks are saying.
Even the simple statement Black Lives Matter is a truth being spoken to power, to me, to all of us. As such, it is a treasure.
May we hear the truth around us, and respond with gratitude for the treasures we are given, striving to become skilled people who are ever in pursuit of truth.
- Listening to Powerful Truth - February 1, 2019
