Tag: speaking truth to power

Day 5 Reflection: Courage (originally bravery)

Note: The prompt for today is “bravery”, which technically means acting without fear. Courage, on the other hand, means to act despite the fear. I have changed today’s UULent prompt to courage, as I don’t believe bravery applies here. 
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Speak truth to power.

This is a phrase I learned from my experiences as a Quaker. Speaking truth to power answers wrongs with an appeal to right, answers violence with peace, answers degradation with dignity.

Speaking truth to power requires courage, because power can be used to fire someone from a job or turn others against them. Or to kill someone.

I think of a recent example of speaking truth to power, a very polarizing figure, Colin Kaepernick. Kaepernick communicated his concerns about the mistreatment of black people in the US wordlessly, kneeling at the National Anthem. This set off a firestorm of criticism and ultimately got Kaepernick released from his contract and likely blacklisted from the NFL. It takes courage to speak one’s truth with so much to lose.

People who speak truth to power are sometimes seen as heroes — Martin Luther King, for example. Others, like Colin Kaepernick, are seen as disrespectful, foolish, or dangerous. These views often change depending on whether one agrees with the speaker. 

What truth is worth dying for? I look at my heroes, who sacrificed to speak truth to power — Martin Luther King, Colin Kaepernick, Karen Silkwood —  and I wonder if I have the courage to speak truth to power in a big way as they have. 

Perhaps I am instead called to speak truth to power in a dozen small ways every day, which still takes courage. May I have the wisdom to choose the truth and the courage to speak it today.

Day 1 Reflection: Dedication

My list of blog posts

I have written 693 blog posts including this post. In mid-April, this blog will be two years old. I write almost every day unless I’m fighting depression, and even then I usually write.

I don’t always feel motivated to write. I would find it easy to devote myself to writing if I received accolades for it, or if I knew my writing impacted someone in some way. Rewarding a behavior results in more of that behavior — that’s called classical conditioning. In the case of my blog, readership and comments and likes would be the rewards for blogging behavior. However, I only have an average of twenty readers per day, and I have no idea whether they like my work. Comments on the blog and likes on Facebook and Twitter are few and far between.

Still, I write, almost every day. 

It takes dedication — in my case, dedication to the craft of writing; dedication to the confraternity of writers; dedication to the concept that it’s important to reflect, to soul-search, to speak truth whether or not anyone listens.

Dedication in the face of obscurity makes me more solid, braced by my convictions that writing is the work of my soul.