The poet Emily Dickinson writes: 

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —

Success in Circuit lies

Too bright for our infirm Delight

The Truth’s superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased

With explanation kind

The Truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind —

Over 150 years later, Michael Eric Dyson, in his book, Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America, writes something similar: “To be blunt, you (white people) are emotionally immature about race…We are forced to be gentle with you, which is another way of saying we are forced to lie to you. We must let you down easy, you, the powerful partner in our fraught relationship…You get upset when we tell you that whiteness has often been damaging and toxic. You get angry when we tell you how badly whiteness has behaved throughout history.” Dyson’s writing makes one wonder: How long can the truth be told slant? What is the collective moral cost of half truths and indirect truths being told?

When witnesses are sworn into a court of law, they promise “To tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” As a country, we claim to value the truth, and yet we can scarcely face and acknowledge our history, riddled with myths and outright lies, and the ways that that history is still alive today. 

What does it take to hear the truth? To tell the truth? What shifts and gets unlocked in our bodies, our families, our churches, our communities, the body of our country, when we start taking the risk of telling and hearing the truth, even when it’s uncomfortable, challenging, and dangerous?   

Archbishop Rowan Williams writes, “Truth makes love possible; love makes truth bearable.” These words suggest that truth by itself is not enough. Truth and love must dance together, striving to open the tight, defensive, scared places within the human heart. 

This month, we will explore the spiritual work of hearing and telling the truth in love. 

This month, please join us for these Sunday services:

• Sunday, Feb. 7, with Rev. Karen Hutt
• Sunday, Feb. 14 with Rev. Justin Schroeder
• Sunday, Feb. 21 with Rev. Jen Crow
• Sunday, Feb. 28 with Rev. Arif Mamdani

And these Wednesday services:

• Wednesday, Feb. 3 with Rev. Jen Crow
• Wednesday, Feb. 10 with Rev. Justin Schroeder
• Wednesday, Feb. 17 with Rev. Karen Hutt
• Wednesday, Feb. 24 with Rev. Karen Hutt