Truth IS Freedom! While I believe ‘ truth without compassion is cruelty,’ I’ve not demanded people censor themselves from speaking to me without subscribing to ‘my’ rules of engagement. Nor would I censor anyone’s free speech. To me, ‘walking on the water of free discourse’ is three unified ideas:
1) Say what you mean,
2) Mean what you say, but
3) Don’t say it mean.
Adulting smacks of listening as an art. Listening is not only passive; it is giving feedback, sometimes done silently or verbally or by action. In contrast, there’s little future in getting into peeing contests with skunks, although sometimes it seems unavoidable.
The world is run by those who show up. The only thing worth less than speaking up is not speaking up. Without a doubt, in my life, the greatest lessons came from difficult circumstances. After I processed it, the things most difficult to hear turned into my greatest assets.
The truth will set us free, but it might irritate us a lot before we finish processing it. ‘If it doesn’t kill us, it makes us stronger’ is a common expression, but ‘it’ might actually kill the part of us that surely needs dying (like the cacoon becoming the butterfly). In other words, that which kills us also makes us stronger.
Hearing difficult words grows us, but who wants to question their most dearly held convictions? I’ve learned that the courage of my convictions is practical, but having the courage to question my convictions is imperative. There’s more freedom in a question than in the prison of an answer. Making our wounds our weakness is something I heard tell Dr. Phil many years ago. But any story without a splash of humor probably isn’t the whole truth. Laugh to keep from crying, sometimes.
I met a guy in prison that was in great shape, and who would drop and do fifty puships on a dare. One day, I laughed and told him his ability to do pushups compared not at all to mine. I informed him that I would do one pushup for every pushup he could muster. He hit the challenge robustly, and pumped out around maybe 100 pushups. We drew a bit of a crowd on the prison yard, so when I got down and did one pushup and then got up and said, “That was sure easy. Thanks.”, he pointed at me and raising his voice, said ‘You ain’t done yet!’ I explained that indeed I was done, for I had done “One” pushup for every one he did. Yeah, he was not happy, but he was also too tired to do anything about it, so I was lucky.
The most challenging pushups are the first and last ones, but after recuperating, the first and the last have moved or changed because we became stronger. The first time we question our conviction (be motivated to face our first pushup) is the most useful part of dealing with a growth paradigm. Motivation to start and do every subsequent pushup possible, ending with the one that makes you look like an utter weakling, is what it means to face all the nuances of one’s most prized and comfortable convictions. Basking in the glory of mental laziness is the essence of censorship. I incorporated the belief that the unexamined life is being only half alive. Over time, what was once hard becomes easy. Happiness is a choice. Looking for the good fuels our hope and focusing on trust rebuilds brokeness.
Hands down, the things that have best helped me in life were twofold: A) Miracles and then B) listening to the things I most abhorred hearing or experiencing. Hearing what I was uncomfortable with or disagreed with grew my spiritual, emotional, and intellectual muscles; I grew by facing my fears or other people’s anger or judgments.
Case in point: I have spoken on Victim Impact Panels, DWI/DUI clinics, schools, etc., since January 1991. I’ve read thousands of comment sheets providing feedback on presentations. Taking live questions after a presentation is not for the faint of heart; sometimes, audience members are downright mean, judgemental, and angry. But usually, they are appreciative.
A nugget of gold or a seed of beauty is in the middle of every problematic audience perspective. The hard questions must be faced, fed proper nutrients, watered, and light shone over the soil of its encapsulation for it to grow. Being patient with them and oneself in this process takes time and energy, but from my experience, it’s worth it. Burn it into the consciousness of every person that people can get well, regardless of anyone or anything. Forgive everything, but don’t expect it always to be easy. Forgiveness always runs deeper than the offense that requires its presence.
After speaking, I’ve heard someone say I should have been ‘fried in the electric chair’ for what I did. After discussion, the person apologized, having changed their mind. Another time, a Sunday School class I spoke to at Synagogue had a Mock Trial for my life after I went home. They decided that an eye-for-an-eye would be inappropriate in my case, as I am saving more lives than I took. If put to death, who would be accountable for the people who said I saved their lives through the years?
I’ve heard many harsh perspectives over these 24 years of speaking, but I’ve also heard that I prevented suicide, that I helped people give new birth to a life of sobriety, or that they would never drive impaired ever again. People related to forgiving the unforgivable, thus ushering a newfound freedom from emotional or spiritual pain in their lives. Before speaking the first time, I assumed everyone would write me off as a dirtbag, but the forgiveness I’ve experienced in a speech from a MADD Mother who said she was not ‘mad’ at anybody, who said she forgave the young man who killed her son by driving impaired. She forgave him in court before he was sentenced for killing her son. She looked him in the eye, told him she loved him, and forgave him for killing her son. He broke down crying. Had she used her freedom of speech to say her son is dead and he’s alive, that he should be dead and not her son, he might have gone to his cell and hung himself. She said that we forgive, notwithstanding the temperature of our hearts. She also said that as a person of faith and in recovery herself from alcoholism, she had to forgive. She said no one has a right to be an obstacle in the path of someone who wants to get well. If we become their stumbling block when they fall, will we accept our part in hurting someone else because they didn’t get well?
Hearing her story in December of 1990 changed my life; I didn’t want to listen to it before I heard it. I was experiencing ‘contempt prior to investigation,’ AKA prejudice. Thank God I listened. She encouraged me to speak, and she gets some credit for every good thing I’ve accomplished as a speaker.
So, yes, absolutely, freedom of speech is worth the cost. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water, and don’t quit before the ‘miracle of forgiveness’ happens. Simple, but not easy. Not expressing forgiveness is like killing the part of you that never had a chance to fly free above the problems in life. No forgiveness, no peace.
