SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 29 2024 - SPEAK TRUTH, EVEN IF YOUR VOICE SHAKES
Sunday, September 25, 2024
Carolyn Smith
Speak Truth, Even if Your Voice Is Shaking
Intro - think of the Places we love/farm memories, cottages, gentle times, exhilarating
times, so often tied to places and planet -happy, awe-filled, restless adventures
discovering the wild and wonderful planet we live on.
We live in the Best spot on earth, I think - the level of rights & freedoms we hardly notice
here, the diversity we celebrate and build on, ability to rise above divisions here, with
freedom to speak out and argue and complain - to demand action and to vote for a
world we want - where else on earth but here? AND so we also enjoy the freedom and
luxury to NOT speak out - fear isn’t driving our actions, despair isn’t driving us to our
feet - lucky us.
And we have the freedom and safety to watch the disaster and heartache down-south of
Hurricane Helen from our sofas. Aside from some flooding and really hot days, we’re
protected from suffering from Climate extinction - But the spots we love aren’t - family in
BC - - fires one month and floods and avalanches the next, other provinces...,
hurricanes down south where we vacation and out east where our families are... - we
are smart enough and connected enough to know and care that our ecosystem and
weather patterns are intimately linked to oceans and deserts and the whole planet.
A lot of hand wringing has gone into WHY change is so hard, why it’s hard to talk to
people and get people talking about climate extinction in a way that brings action/
.1 - we’ve all got a lot on our plates - parenting kiddos or ageing parents. Aging selves
when you had other plans, work stress and commuting and high prices, all the issues
that beg for our attention - Truth & reconciliation, racial justice, LGBTQ fears - we
thought we had some of these figured out and going in the right direction.
So if I say “have you reduced your carbon footprint lately” or “what have you done to
mitigate climate warming,” you no doubt say, yeah, yeah, when I get a minute. There
are 5 reasons that we disconnect from the topic:
We’ve got enough 1-Distance from the problem to put it off, we hear the 2-Doom over
and over, and it either feels hopeless OR we are desensitized. We feel 3-Dissonance
from what we know can help - and what we feel capable of doing easily - so we tune out
the changes needed out of convenience and comfort, or at least out of a sense of “I
can’t do everything!” And 4-Denial - It’s not my job - someone else has a more polluting
car than I do, so I don’t need to rush to change, India isn’t doing much so at least we’re
better than them - denying that more change can help. And if we’re avoiding an 5-
Identity like granola cruncher or flaky tree-hugger, we may align our identity with
something that is polar opposite.. rather than discovering for ourselves a voice and
identity that resonates. Luxury of distance... desensitized by Doom, dissonance in our
lives from what we know we need to do, Denial about how we can change and even
diminishing identities that honour our love and care for the world around us...
We turn inward, tune out. Because we just don’t know what to do about it. It’s too big,
what can one person do? Lucky us being distant enough that the storms aren’t on our
doorstep.
What would get the us on our feet? How far does it go - how high does the sea rise,
how many animals driven to extinction, how much pollinator collapse and soil erosion
before someone can’t help but rise up?
Is that why story after story, hero after hero is a small voice, a marginalized one, a tiny
force that rises surprisingly, mightily, in the face of giants? The ones with the most to
lose, with nothing to lose find the Spirit within them to rise to their feet and speak truth to
power.
Small voices rising up - I think of Greta Thunberg - who had millions on their feet in the
world- wide climate marches in 2019. I think of Phyllis Webstad - the young girl now a
grandmother who wore her favourite orange shirt to her first day of Residential school,
only to have it stripped from her. Here we have Isla stepping onto the stage, bravely
engaging our community, and Conor Russel with us today who stood on Parliament Hill
and travelled to Germany to join crowds working for change. Where do they find the
decision, the strength of spirit to take on dissonance and complacency, and how can we
magnify their voices, rather than throwing another wet blanket yet again.
Today we share the story of Esther - it reminds me of young David facing Giant Goliath,
or young Mary, pregnant and lifted into a higher calling... and so much is obscure here -
First - did you notice that God isn’t mentioned at all - the whole biblical story of Esther,
about a Jewish community scattered to the Persian Empire 2500 years ago - doesn’t
mention faithful inspiration or God’s voice or divine presence at all... where does her
courage come from? And we call her ‘Queen,’ but she got that way being groomed to
‘serve’ the King, disconnected from her people, replacing the older less appealing
Queen Vashti when the king had tired of her. Esther isn’t queen by virtue of power, but
by elimination of it. What does her voice matter? She has nothing to lose anymore
except her life of confinement kept as a trophy. This is as much a universal story of the
weakness of the fragile bonds of treachery and greed that SEEM too strong, too big, too
mighty to break through. While the tyrants are lolly-gagging around, drinking wine and
infighting, a girl with heart, with family she fondly remembers, and a culture that values
community - that girl steps into the opportunity available through her Crown and
speaks.... It is a satirical, biting denouncement of tyrants and a hopeful, vindictive, but
daring call to use our integrity, to have trust and courage and to step up when we can.
From somewhere within, and we know this is true, our voice becomes strong when it is
steeped in things that matter more than greed - things like family, like joy and
community, things like flourishing life - these are what breathe life into our days: that’s
what ‘Inspire’ means -to fill with breath and life. Esther’s voice brings down the evil
Haman, and indeed, the ensuing chapters tell that the uprising topples the Persian army
completely. The lowly rise up, the mighty have fallen. May it be so!
Except you, I, we have more to do and more to give. Year after year the chances we
see & incremental change and then the backsliding - on climate, on LGBT rights, even
on Women’s rights - the backsliding is infuriating. How exhausting is it and how
seductive the idea of throwing up our hands and walking away ... to where? And our
young ones have watched this: watched their parents and grandparents choose
convenience and numbing pleasures like wine and netflix, and booze in corner stores,
football games instead of political discourse, celebrity worship because it’s easier than
standing up. Our young ones wonder ‘can we still talk things through, or find common
ground or middle ground to build from?' No wonder anxiety and stress and self-
medicating have become the story of our time. We don’t know who has our backs if we
speak up, we don’t trust community to support and listen and help. Notice that I said
“we?” Each and every day, it’s our own voice that we either take a chance with or hold
back. Collectively, we’ve shied away, or together, we’ve dared to try. As this ‘village’
here at St. Paul’s, we’ve created a culture that teaches, encourages and empowers our
young ones to use their voices. And within us, when we dare to share our dreams and
our longings and our hopes, it’s infectious, inspiring - the Spirit within us inspires others,
it rises and grows among us and magnifies into something mighty. Esther didn’t call
that God. But her tradition did. Our tradition that has carried forward knows that Spirit
is alive and hangs on, as a small spark in darkness, waiting for a chance to shine with
compelling power that changes the world.
You’ll recall that I listed: distance, doom, dissonance, denial and different identity; and
the flip side of Change all comes from daring to voice our hopes and dreams together.
The luxury of Distance is diminished by being 1 - social/being in community like here at
St. Pauls, or like last week we heard about joining Oakville Green, or have you heard of
GASP - a local group called Grandmothers Act To Save the Planet for grand-people of
all kinds together? 2- The Doom we feel needs Support for and from each other, and
progress happens. 3-Dissonance from how we live needs gentle nudging and
examples from friends towards actions that resonate with how we really feel; 4-Denial
and greenwashing melts away when all around we see and share evidence, facts and
more steps of success - and 5- let’s identify with good change-agents, with our
neighbours and our community and at higher levels. And the mightiest way we help
each other see and feel Identify with this flourishing way forward is by Story - our stories
of the light sparkling on a northern lake beneath the trees, or the warmth of Florida
sunshine or the exhilaration of skiing down a hill ... stories of the dangers of melting ski
hills and flooding in favourite places and field wrecked for another growing season.
All together, we encourage and empower the stories and voices that bring change
where it counts. Doesn’t matter what yesterday was, because we can do it today...
The truth of that Story - of hope and longing and flourishing - is the divine story - always
compelling - because they told it 2500 years ago, 5000 years ago, still today and
thankfully tomorrow such stories will still resonate.
We are here now, this circle of St. Paul’s - new friends and old ones - together today
because we inspire each other.... And in our crazy time of congregations collapsing or
reorganizing for what our future holds, it’s our stories and friendship and resolve that
have held us together, Our stories and our courage have inspired St. John’s and Trinity
and maybe even Munn’s to link arms with us and build a better way forward.
Esther didn’t call it God but she rose up inspired in the face of annihilation of all that
mattered. She didn’t call on God for strength, but she found it. When I’ve closed my
eyes and heard the wind in the trees, smelled the pines and watched a lone monarch
struggle by, when you’ve ached for the sound of the waves crashing on the seashore
back home, or breathed deep the wind and the rain, adventured in far off places, how
could it be anything but breathtaking, inspiring and Spirit-filled? That has inspired
language of God, of all that is divine, of magnificence. Our Soul Cries out with a voice
that resounds with all creation. with bird song, or children’s laughter or whale calls, and
it might sing, or use biting satire or a ‘screw it -lets do it’ attitude. Whatever it sounds
like, we need more and more of it! The people around us are longing for it, even if
they’ve forgotten. Spirit rising from truth and soul and flourishing hope. May it carry us
forward together. Amen.