Raise Your Hand if Your are a Truth Teller
I love Kate Bowler. She is a person of faith but has really seen difficult days; what really changed her world was getting colon cancer in her thirties while raising a young son. She wrote these words in her new book “The Lives we Actually Have” that inspired me:
Blessed are you, resisting the urge to reframe. You who are sick and tired of silver linings.
Blessed are you, the truth-teller. And what a miracle it is when your candor finds a chorus that echos back: “same.” The first who will hear it. The parent who will stomach it. The parter who doesn’t roll their eyes.
May you feel your truths answered by this language of love, changing where you can and confirming where you can’t. But loved, loved, all the same.
The big things that I have had to tell truths, painful truths, about are being hurt by the church, the loss of my dad, and the stories of my childhood. I have been met by very close loved ones with great intentions who want to say “it wasn’t that bad” (and that has harmed our relationship). I have been met with people who have responded that way and remained open when I said “I need you to listen and believe me, non-judgementally.” It is so hard to be with that pain and to not push it away and when people have done it for me, like Bowler says, it is a language of love.
Recently (March 2024), I was given a chance to preach at my church on church trauma and how the community of faith can be receptive and loving when people enter the community with a lot of baggage and distrust (both of people and the institution). I felt loved in the preparation for this sermon through prayer by those who knew that I was about to speak to the community. Another woman read my thoughts and edited my work. Another found babysitting last minute and showed up and gave me lots of hugs, kisses, and “I’m so proud of you!”s enough to make me feel filled up with her good mom energy.
In my preparation, I had a one-on-one discussion with a relatively new friend and she listened well and then said directly and clearly “What was said that day was mean.” And it kind of silenced the room. She was referring to the conversation that would be my final one with my church community before we parted ways (September 2020). It wasn’t lost on me that a queer woman was the one to show me clarity and love. In 2020, my church drew a strong boundary with me and made me feel unwelcome because of my queer-affirming theology which I had been clear about for nearly 10 years and vocal about for 6 years at that point. What confusion and sadness and pain that caused unnecessarily. And then, who was the one to teach me love, wisdom, boundaries, and conflict resolution skills but a queer woman who had been excommunicated from her evangelical church family as a young adult who came out. She could see the brokenness of what happened in that moment and she didn’t skirt around it in anyway or make it about herself, just plain and simple, spoke the true words: that was mean. She also talked about how hurt upon hurt and gaslighting on top of hurt amplifies it.
So I will raise my hand as a truth-teller. I told those who would listen after that incident who were a part of that faith community what happened and what I wish could happen to repair the damage. When the leaders were not able to talk to me about the conflict in person out of fear of being seen as in agreement with my theology (to clarify: that was never my intention), I told people in the community to be aware of the fact that when conflict happens, leadership circles up and protects the leader rather than asking why less powerful folks are talking about conflict and harm. Truthtellers make everyone uncomfortable and one way to get back to comfort is to ignore the truthtellers or get them to quiet down. Another way is the longer, bumpier road: it is to listen and journey with them.
I will stand with the woman who spoke truth to me as I prepared to share about church trauma with the community. I stand with the kids who are truth-tellers in their family system even when no adult is acknowledging the pain and the suffering. I stand with the student who tells the truth in a toxic university system and risks graduation and safety because of it. Kate Bowler says that we are blessed when we do this and we are loved and I cling to that.
So many of my clients have been truth-tellers over the years. I have met clients who tell the truth about their childhood to their siblings and find healing and peace. I have met clients who tell the truth to themselves and their partners and they leave a toxic workplace that otherwise from the outside seems like the perfect job. Truth tellers are everywhere among us. May you be blessed for your honesty, may you be believed, and may you walk forward in peace and health!
